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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 




MRS. PRINGLE AT CHICORA WOOD. 
Photograph by Amelia M. Walson. 



CHRONICLES OF 
CHICORA WOOD 



BY 

ELIZABETH W. ALLSTON PRINGLE 

AUTHOR OF " A \yOMAN RICE PLANTER " 



m 

%: 



ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1922 






Copyright, 1922, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Printed in the United States of America 



Published May, 19J2 




MAY 23 1922 
©CI.A6B1795 



PREFACE 

As I sit in the broad piazza, watching the clos- 
ing of the day, I gaze into the vistas of moss- 
draped giant oaks. All is mystery, the mystery 
of nature, the mystery of the ages. These oaks, 
still strong, still beautiful, have seen generations 
pass. Through their filmy vistas the god of the 
day is sending his gleaming shafts as he has al- 
ways done. 

But brighter to me than these last rays is the 
pageant of the Past, which sweeps before me now: 
scenes as intense as the flaming sky, incidents as 
tender as the fleecy clouds, years as dark and 
tragic as that leaden storm-bank at the horizon's 
edge, but redeemed from utter despair by a cour- 
age and a sacrifice equal in splendor to its il- 
lumined summits. 

In my memory are stored the beauty and pathos 
of these years. Shall I let all this die without a 
word ^ These pictures I have treasured — so full 
of beauty and color — shall I let them fade, even 
as the sunset, into gray oblivion ? I cannot bring 
before you as clearly as I would the charm and 
glamour of the past, but I can at least give a faint 
idea of "the days that are no more." 

[v] 



CONTENTS 
PART I — MY FATHER 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Origin of the Two L Allstons . 3 
II. Planter and Citizen .... 12 

III. My Brother's Narrative ... 26 

PART II — MY MOTHER 

IV. Early Days and Old Field School 43 

V. Daddy Tom and Daddy Prince — 
Death of Little Mother So Be- 
loved 53 

VI. Marriage 57 

VII. Move to Canaan — Aunt Blythe . 67 

VIII. First Child — Plantation Life 81 

IX. First Grieving 94 

PART III — MYSELF 

X. Baby Woes 107 

XI. The Little Schoolhouse — Board- 

ing-School 123 

XII. Summer on the Sea — School and 
Della's Illness and Trip Abroad 
— Papa Elected Governor . . 137 

XIII. Christmas at Chicora Wood . . 150 

XIV. Life in Charleston — Prepara- 

tions FOR War 160 

XV. Boarding-School in War Times . 176 
[vii] 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 

XVI. 
XVII. 



XVIII. 

XIX. 

XX. 

XXI. 

XXII. 

XXIII. 

XXIV. 

XXV. 

XXVI. 



PART IV — WAR TIMES 

PAGE 

The Wedding 187 

Crowley Hill — Our Place of Ref- 
uge During the War 



Sorrow 

Loch Adele 

Shadows 

Preparing to Meet Sherman 
They Come ! 



Daddy Hamedy's Appeal — In the 
Track of Sherman's Army . 

Shadows Deepen 

Gleams of Light 

Taking the Oath 



192 

200 
213 
218 
221 
229 

239 
248 
250 
260 



XXVII. 

XXVIII. 

XXIX. 

XXX. 

XXXI. 

XXXII. 

XXXIII. 



PART V — READJUSTMENT 

Gleams of Light from My Diary 
Aunt Petigru — My First German 
Mamma's School . 
The School a Success 



Chicora Wood 

Daddy Ancrum's Story 



283 
298 

307 
316 

331 
340 
349 



[ viii ] 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

Mrs. Pringle at Chicora Wood Frontispiece 



FACING PAGE 



Robert Francis Withers Allston, President of the 

Senate 20 

Portrait by Flagg about 1850 

James Louis Petigru 46 

Miniature by Fraser 

Mrs. Benjamin Allston (nee Charlotte Anne Allston), 

Mother of R. F. W. Allston 90 

Miniature by Fraser 

Mrs. R. F. W. Allston (nee Adele Petigru) .... 140 

Portrait by Flagg about 1850 

Adele Allston at Sixteen 188 

Chicora Wood 244 

Mrs. William Allston (nee Ester La Brosse de Mahboeuf) 294 



[ix 



PART I 
MY FATHER 



CHAPTER I 
ORIGIN OF THE TWO L ALLSTONS 

JOHN ALLSTON, of St. John's, Berkeley, was 
born in England in 1666, and came to this 
country between 1685 and 1694. He was de- 
scended from the ancient family of Allstone, through 
John Allston, of Saxham Hall, Newton, Suffolk, 
which was the seat of the Allstons for several hun- 
dred years. An Allston was the Saxon Lord of Stan- 
ford in Norfolk before the Conquest, and was dis- 
possessed by the Normans. The old Saxon names 
of Rath Alstan, Alstane, were but variants of the 
name which John of St. John's spelled Alstane, 
until the signature of his will (1718), when he 
wrote it Allston. The motto was "Immotus,"* 
" Az. ten stars, crest an estoile in a crescent argent." 
John Allston, of St. John's, Berkeley, had a 
number of children, as self-respecting people of 
that date usually had, but we are concerned only 
with the descendants of his eldest son, John, who 
was the grandfather of Benjamin Allston, my 
father's father, and those of his second son, Wil- 
liam, who was the grandfather of Charlotte Ann 

*See vol. I, page Q119, Encyclopedia Heraldica. 
[3] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

Allston, my father's mother. So his parents were 
second cousins. 

Ben Allston died when his second son, Robert, 
was only eight years old. The boy was educated 
at Mr. Waldo's school in Georgetown until he was 
sixteen, when his widowed mother determined to 
send him to West Point. He entered in 1817, 
graduating in June, 1821, this being the first class 
which made the four years' course under Colonel 
Sylvanus Thayer. He was appointed lieutenant 
in the 3d Artillery, and assigned to duty on the 
Coast Survey under Lieutenant-Colonel Kearney, 
of the Topographical Engineers. In this position 
he assisted in surveying the harbors of Plymouth 
and Provincetown, Mass., and the entrance to 
Mobile Bay. While on duty here he got letters 
from his mother telling of her difficulties, which 
demanded his immediate presence at home. He 
asked for leave of absence, but being refused this 
by his commanding officer, he resigned his com- 
mission February, 1822, bought a horse and rode 
through northern Alabama and Georgia, then in- 
habited by Indians, to Charleston, and thence to 
Georgetown, S. C. 

His mother's difficulties in managing her prop- 
erty of landed estate and negroes had been great, 

[4] 



ORIGIN OF THE TWO L ALLSTONS 



and added to this was the effort of the purchaser 
of a plantation adjoining Chicora on the south to 
seize a tract of land (attempting to prove that this 
land belonged to his plantation), which when 
cleared became four of her best rice-fields. This had 
kept her in constant fiery correspondence, until my 
father felt it his duty to resign and come home 
and settle the matter. 

He employed the lawyer of greatest repute at 
the moment, James L. Petigru; the case was 
brought into court, and my grandmother's title 
to the land estabhshed beyond question. She 
did not long survive to enjoy having her son at 
home to take the burden of the management of 
her affairs, for she died October 24, 1824, after a 
short illness of pleurisy, in her fifty-fourth year. 
This was a very great sorrow to my father, for he 
had for her an intense affection with a sense of 
protection. She was beautiful and very small, so 
that the servants always spoke of her as "Little 
Miss" in distinction to Aunt Blythe, who was 
" Big Miss." According to the custom of the day, 
the land was all left to the sons, charged with leg- 
acies to the daughters, so my father's patrimony 
consisted of large tracts of swamp land in George- 
town and Marion and seventeen negroes, subject 

[5] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

to a debt to his sisters which amounted to more 
than the value of the property. He entered upon 
its management with great energy, surveyed the 
land himself, cleared and drained the swamps and 
converted them into valuable rice-fields. 

In this work his military education was of great 
service to him. In 1823 he was elected surveyor- 
general of the State, an office which he held for 
four years. In 1828 he was returned by the people 
of Winyah to the lower house of the legislature, 
and in 1832 was returned to the Senate. About 
this time he attained the rank of colonel of the 
militia, service of the State. He continued to be 
returned to the Senate, and was president of that 
body from 1850 to 1856, when he was elected gov- 
ernor. But I must go back. During the lawsuit 
about the land my father was entertained by 
James L. Petigru, came to know the lawyer's sister, 
Adele Petigru, and fell in love with her; and she 
finally yielded to his suit, and they were married 
in 1832 and went at once to his plantation, Chicora 
Wood, fourteen miles north of Georgetown, on 
the Great Pee Dee River. 

I am always afraid of bursting out into praise 
of my father, for I adored him, and thought 
him the wisest and best man in the world, and 

[6] 



MY FATHER'S ANCESTRY 

still do think he was a most unusual mixture of 
firmness and gentleness, with rare executive abil- 
ity. But I have always found, in reading biogra- 
phies and sketches, that the unstinted and reiter- 
ated praises of the adoring writers rouses one's 
opposition, and I write this with the hope of bring- 
ing to his grandchildren the knowledge and appre- 
ciation of my father's character. I will try to 
draw his portrait with a few firm strokes, and leave 
the respect and admiration to be aroused by it. 
Now that slavery is a thing of the past, the younger 
generation in our Southland really know nothing 
about the actual working of it, and they should 
know to understand and see the past in its true 
light. Slavery was in many ways a terrible mis- 
fortune, but we know that in the ancient world it 
was universal, and no doubt the great Ruler of 
the world, "that great First Cause, least under- 
stood," allowed it to exist for some reason of His 
own. 

The colony of North and South Carolina, then 
one, entreated the mother country to send no 
more slaves. "We want cattle, horses, sheep, 
swine, we don't want Africans." But the Afri- 
cans continued to come. The Northeastern States 
were the first to get rid of the objectionable human 
property when conscientious scruples arose as to 

[7] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

the owning of slaves — in some instances by free- 
ing them, but in many more instances by selling 
them in the Southern States. There is no doubt 
that in the colder climate slave labor was not 
profitable. When the Civil War came, the South- 
ern planters were reduced from wealth to poverty 
by the seizure of their property which they held 
under the then existing laws of the country. It 
is a long and tangled story — and I do not pretend 
to judge of its rights and wrongs. I have no 
doubt that the Great Father's time for allowing 
slavery was at an end. I myself am truly thank- 
ful that slavery is a thing of the past, and that I 
did not have to take up the burden of the owner- 
ship of the one hundred people my father left me 
in his will (all mentioned by name), with a pretty 
rice-plantation called Exchange two miles north 
of Chicora Wood. I much prefer to have had to 
make my own Hving, as I have had to do, except 
for the short six years of my married life, than to 
have had to assume the care and responsibility of 
those hundred negroes, soul and body. I have 
had a happy life, in spite of great sorrow and con- 
tinued work and strain, but I am quite sure that 
with my sensitive temperament and fierce Hugue- 
not conscience I never could have had a happy 
life under the burden of that ownership. 



EARLY LIFE AND MARRIAGE 

It would have been a comfort, however, if we 
could have gathered up something from my 
father's large property, but we did not. Just be- 
fore the war my mother's brother, Captain Tom 
Petigru, of the navy, died, leaving a childless 
widow. She lived in Charleston, in her beautiful 
home with large yard and garden, at the corner of 
Bull and Rutledge Streets, and was a rich woman, 
as riches were counted in those days — owning a 
large farm in Abbeville County, where the Giberts 
and Petigrus had originally settled, and also a 
rice-plantation, "Pipe Down," on Sandy Island 
on the Waccamaw, not far from my father's es- 
tates, also one hundred negroes. As soon as 
Uncle Tom died. Aunt Ann wrote to my father, 
asking him as a great favor to buy her plantation 
and negroes, as she felt quite unequal to the man- 
agement and care of them. My father replied 
immediately that it was impossible for him to 
comply with her request, that he had his hands 
full managing his own property, and that he spe- 
cially felt he had already more negroes than he 
desired. Aunt Ann continued her entreaties. 
Then the negroes from Pipe Down began to send 
deputations over to beg my father to buy them. 
Philip Washington, a very tall, very black man, a 
splendid specimen of the negro race, after two 

[9] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

generations of slavery, was their spokesman. My 
uncle had been devoted to Philip, and considered 
him far above the average negro in every way, 
and in his will had given him his freedom, along 
with two or three others; he pleaded the cause of 
his friends with much eloquence, saying they had 
fixed on him as the one owner they desired. Then 
my uncle, James L. Petigru, entered the Hsts, and 
appealed to my father's chivalry for his old and 
feeble sister-in-law, and to the intense feeling of 
the negroes, who had selected him for their future 
owner, and were perfectly miserable at his refusal 
— if it were a question of money, he argued, my 
father need not hesitate, as "Sister Ann" did not 
desire any cash payment; she greatly preferred a 
bond and mortgage, and the interest paid yearly, as 
that would be the best investment she could have. 
At last my father yielded, and made a small cash 
payment, giving his bond and a mortgage for the 
rest. The deed was done — the Pipe Down people 
were overjoyed, and the debt assumed. This debt 
it was which rendered my father's estate insolvent 
at the end of the war, for he died in 1864. The 
slaves having been freed, the property was gone, 
but the debt remained in mortgages on his landed 
estates, which had all to be sold. The plantations 
were: Chicora Wood, 890 acres, Ditchford, 350 

[10] 



EARLY LIFE AND MARRIAGE 

acres, Exchange, 600 acres, Guendalos, 600 acres, 
Nightingale Hall, 400 acres, Waterford, 250 acres, 
beside Pipe Down itself. Also the two farms in 
Anson County, North Carolina, and our beautiful 
house in Charleston. Besides this, there were 
6,000 acres of cypress timber at Britton's Neck; 
5,000 acres of cypress and pine land near Carver's 
Bay; 300 acres at Canaan Seashore; house and 20 
acres on Pawley's Island. Of all this principality, 
not one of the heirs got anything ! 

My mother's dower was all that could be 
claimed. In South Carolina the right of dower is 
one-third of the landed property, for life, or one- 
sixth, in fee simple. My mother preferred the 
last, and the Board of Appraisers found that the 
plantation Chicora Wood, where she had always 
lived, would represent a sixth value of the real 
estate, and that was awarded her as dower; but 
not an animal nor farm implement, no boats nor 
vehicles — just the land, with its dismantled dwell- 
ing-house. I tell this here, to explain how we 
came to face poverty at the end of the war. 



[II] 



CHAPTER II 
PLANTER AND CITIZEN 

N'"OW I must go back to my father's early 
life, for I left him just married, and 
bringing his beautiful bride from the 
gay life of the city to the intense quiet, as far as 
social joys went, of the country. It was wonder- 
ful that their marriage proved a success, and a 
great credit to them both. They were so abso- 
lutely different in tastes and ideals that each had 
to give up a great deal that they had dreamed of 
in matrimony; but their principles and standards 
being the same, things always came right in the 
end. My father was always a very public-spirited 
man, and interested in the good of his county and 
his State. Of course, all this public life necessi- 
tated constant and prolonged absences from home, 
and the rejoicing was great always, when the 
legislature adjourned and he returned from Co- 
lumbia. He was a scientific rice-planter and agri- 
culturist; he wrote articles for De Bow's Review 
that were regarded as authorities. His plantations 
were models of organization and management. 
All the negroes were taught a trade or to do some 

[12] 



PLANTER AND CITIZEN 



special work. On Chicora Wood there was a 
large carpenter's shop, where a great number of 
skilled men were always at work, under one head 
carpenter. Daddy Thomas was this head, dur- 
ing all my childhood, and he was a great person 
in my eyes. He was so dignified, and treated us 
young daughters of the house as though we were 
princesses; just the self-respecting manner of a 
noble courtier. His wife was the head nurse of 
the "sick-house," and the "children's house," 
also, so that she was also a personage — very black 
and tall, with a handkerchief turban of unusual 
height. We never went near her domain with- 
out returning with handsome presents of eggs, or 
potatoes, or figs, according to season, for Maum 
Phoebe was a very rich person and one of great 
authority. There were always four or five ap- 
prentices in the carpenter's shop, so year by year 
skilled men were turned out, not "jack-legs," 
which was Thomas Bonneau's epithet for the 
incompetent. Then the blacksmith-shop, under 
Guy Walker, was a most complete and up-to-date 
affair, and there young lads were always being 
taught to make horseshoes, and to shoe horses, 
and do all the necessary mending of wheels and 
axles and other ironwork used on a plantation. 

[13] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

The big flats and lighters needed to harvest the 
immense rice-crops were all made in the carpen- 
ter's shop, also the flood-gates necessary to let 
the water on and off^ the fields. These were 
called "trunks," and had to be made as tight as 
a fine piece of joiner's work. There was almost 
a fleet of rowboats, of all sizes, needed on the 
plantation for all purposes, also canoes, or dug- 
outs, made from cypress logs. There was one 
dugout. Rainbow, capable of carrying several 
tierces of rice. When I was a child, the threshing 
of the rice from the straw was done in mills run 
by horse-power; before I can remember it was 
generally done by water-power. The men and 
women learned to work in the mill; to do the best 
ploughing; the best trenching with the hoe — per- 
fectly straight furrows, at an even depth, so as 
to insure the right position for the sprouting 
grain; the most even and best sowing of the rice. 
Then, skilfully to take all the grass and weeds 
out with the sharp, tooth-shaped hoes, yet never 
touch or bruise the grain or its roots, the best 
cultivation of the crop. Also they learned to cut 
the rice most dexterously, with reap-hooks, and lay 
the long golden heads carefully on the stubble, 
so that the hot sun could get through and dry 
[i4l 



PLANTER AND CITIZEN 



it, as would not be possible if it were laid on the 
wet earth, so that it could be tied in sheaves the 
next day. For all these operations prizes were 
offered every year — pretty bright-colored calico 
frocks to the women, and forks and spoons; and 
to the men fine knives, and other things that 
they liked — so that there was a great pride in 
being the prize ploughman, or prize sower, or 
harvest hand, for the year. 

Only the African race, who seem by inheritance 
immune from the dread malarial fever, could have 
made it possible and profitable to clear the dense 
cypress swamps and cultivate them in rice by a 
system of flooding the fields from the river by 
canals, ditches, and flood-gates, draining off the 
water when necessary, and leaving these wonder- 
fully rich lands dry for cultivation. It has been 
said that, like the pyramids, slave labor only could 
have accomplished it; be that as it may, at this 
moment one has the pain of watching the annihi- 
lation of all this work now, when the world needs 
food; now when the starving nations are holding 
out their hands to our country for food, thou- 
sands and thousands of acres of this fertile land 
are reverting to the condition of swamps: land 
capable of bringing easily sixty bushels of rice to 

[15] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

the acre without fertiHzer is growing up in reeds 
and rushes and marsh, the haunt of the alhgator 
and the moccasin. The crane and the bittern are 
always there, the fish-hawk and the soaring eagle 
build their nests on the tall cypress-trees left here 
and there on the banks of the river; the beautiful 
wood-duck is also always there, and at certain 
seasons the big mallard or English duck come in 
great flocks; but, alas, they no longer come in 
clouds, as they used to do (so that a single shot 
has been known to kill sixty on the wing). For 
them too the country is ruined, for them too all 
is changed. Those that come do not stay. It 
was the abundant shattered rice of the culti- 
vated fields, flooded as soon as the harvest was 
over, which brought them in myriads from their 
nesting-grounds in the far north, to spend their 
winters in these fat feeding-grounds, in the con- 
genial climate of Carolina. Now there is no 
shattered rice on which to feed, and in their won- 
derful zigzag flight they stop a day or two to 
see if the abundance of which their forefathers 
have quacked to them has returned, and not find- 
ing it they pass on to Florida and other warm 
climes to seek their winter food. Thus this rich 
storehouse and granary is desolate. With the 
[i6] 



PLANTER AND CITIZEN 



modern machinery for making dikes and banks 
these fields could be restored to a productive con- 
dition and made to produce again, without a very 
heavy expenditure. But alas ! those who owned 
them had absolutely no money, and after the de- 
struction of the banks and flood-gates by the 
great storm of 1906 no restoration was made. A 
few of the plantations in Georgetown County 
have been bought by wealthy Northern men as 
game-preserves. One multimillionaire, Emerson, 
who bought a very fine rice-plantation, Prospect 
Hill, formerly property of William Allston, has 
some fields planted in rice every year, simply for 
the ducks, the grain not being harvested at all, 
but left to attract the flocks to settle down and 
stay there, ready for the sportsman's gun. 

Besides being a diligent, devoted, and scientific 
planter and manager of his estates, my father was 
greatly interested in the welfare of the poor whites 
of the pineland, spoken of always scornfully by the 
negroes as *'Po' Buchra" — nothing could express 
greater contempt. Negroes are by nature aristo- 
crats, and have the keenest appreciation and per- 
ception of what constitutes a gentleman. The 
poor whites of the low country were at a terrible 
disadvantage, for they were never taught to do 
[17] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

anything; they only understood the simplest farm 
work, and there was no market for their labor, the 
land-owners having their own workers and never 
needing to hire these untrained hands, who in their 
turn looked down on the negroes, and held aloof 
from them. These people, the yeomanry of the 
country, were the descendants of the early set- 
tlers, and those who fought through the Revolu- 
tion. They were, as a general rule, honest, law- 
abiding, with good moral standards. Most of 
them owned land, some only a few acres, others 
large tracts, where their cattle and hogs roamed 
unfed but fat. Some owned large herds, and even 
the poorest usually had a cow and pair of oxen, 
while all had chickens and hogs — but never a 
cent of money. They planted corn enough to feed 
themselves and their stock, sweet potatoes, and 
a few of the common vegetables. They never 
begged or made known their needs, except by 
coming to offer for sale very roughly made baskets 
of split white oak, or some coarsely spun yarn, for 
the women knew how to spin, and some of them 
even could weave. There was something about 
them that suggested a certain refinement, and one 
always felt they came from better stock, though 
they never seemed to trace back. Their respect 

[i8] 



PLANTER AND CITIZEN 



for the marriage vow, for instance, impressed one, 
and their speech was clear, good Anglo-Saxon, and 
their vocabulary included some old English words 
and expressions now obsolete. My father was 
most anxious to help them, and felt that to estab- 
lish schools for them throughout the county would 
be the first step. In one of these schools a young 
girl proved such an apt scholar and learned so 
quickly all that she could acquire there that he 
engaged a place for her in a Northern school, and 
got the consent of her parents to her going, and 
she, being ambitious, was greatly pleased. He 
appointed a day to meet her in Georgetown, im- 
pressing on the parents to bring her in time for 
him to put her on the ship, before it sailed for 
New York. At the appointed time the parents 
arrived. My father asked for Hannah; the 
mother answered that they found they would miss 
Hannah too much, she was so smart and helpful, 
but they'd brought Maggie, and he could send 
her to school! My father was very angry; Han- 
nah Mitchell was eighteen and clever and ambi- 
tious, while Maggie was fourteen, and dull and 
heavy-minded. Of course he did not send her. 
It was a great disappointment, for he had taken 
much trouble, and was willing to go to consider- 
[19] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

able expense to give Hannah the chance to de- 
velop, and hoped she would return prepared to 
teach in the school he had established. These 
people are still to be found in our pinelands, and 
have changed little. 

The public roads were also my father's constant 
care, and all through that country were beauti- 
fully kept. The method was simple; each land- 
owner sent out twice a year a number of hands, 
proportioned to his land, and the different gentle- 
men took turns to superintend the work. Our 
top-soil goes down about two feet, before reaching 
clay. The roads were kept in fine condition by 
digging a good ditch on each side of a sixty-foot 
highway; the clay from the ditch being originally 
thrown into the middle of the road, and then twice 
a year those ditches were cleared out, and a little 
more clay from them thrown on the road each 
time. The great difficulty in road-making and 
road-keeping, as I know from my personal obser- 
vation in the present, is not the amount of labor, 
but the proper, intelligent direction of the work. 
In my father's day, the office of road commis- 
sioner and supervisor were unpaid, and my father 
gave his time, work, and interest unstintedly. 

My father's love of art, and of music, and of all 

[20] 




ROBERT FRANCIS WITHERS ALLSTON, 

PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE. 

Portrait by Flagg about 1850. 



PLANTER AND CITIZEN 



beauty was very great. It made all the difference 
in the world to us, his children, growing up in the 
country, so far from picture-galleries and concerts 
and every kind of music. At the sale of the Bona- 
parte collection of pictures in Baltimore my father 
commissioned the artist. Sully, to attend the sale 
and select and buy for him six pictures. Papa 
was much pleased with Mr. Sully's selection. 
They included : 

"A Turk's Head," by Rembrandt. 

"The Supper at Emmaus," by Gherardo del 

Notte. 
"The Holy Family," a very beautiful Gobelin 
tapestry. For this picture Mr. Sully was 
offered double the price he paid before it 
left the gallery, 
"lo," whom Juno in jealous rage had trans- 
formed into a white heifer. A very large 
and beautiful canvas, a landscape with 
the heifer ruminating in the foreground, 
watched by Cerberus, while on a mountain- 
side Mercury sits playing on his flute, try- 
ing to lull him to sleep. (I still own this 
painting.) 
"St. Paul on the Island of Melita," a very large 
canvas representing a group of shipwrecked 

[21] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

mariners around a fire of sticks; in the 
midst stands the figure of St. Paul just 
shaking from his finger a viper, into the 
fire, very dramatic. 
"St. Peter in Prison," awakened by the angel 

while his keepers sleep. 
This is the match picture to the above and the 

same size. 
These works of art on the walls of our country 
home awoke in us all an appreciation and recogni- 
tion of fine paintings for which we can never be 
sufficiently grateful. 

This great love for art and his confidence in its 
elevating influence is shown by his buying and 
having placed in the grounds of the State capitol 
a replica of Houdon's statue of Washington. 

Another and most characteristic evidence is 
furnished by the following note from a friend, to 
whom I wrote, asking for some facts as to my 
father's public life, for I had thus far written of 
him entirely as I knew him in his family and 
home life, except for the bare outline by the dates 
of his election to different offices, and though I 
have no desire or intention of making this a his- 
tory of his official and political career, feeling my- 
self entirely unfitted for that, I felt I should give 

[22 1 



PLANTER AND CITIZEN 



something to show his service in his own State. 
In reply Mr. Yates Snowden wrote: 

"The day before your letter came my eye lit 
upon the invitation of R. F. W. Allston, president 
of the Carolina Art Association, inviting the mem- 
bers of the Convention Secession to visit the Gal- 
lery of Art in Meeting Street whilst deliberating 
here for the public weal. It is hoped that an 
hour bestowed occasionally in viewing some speci- 
mens of art, including Leutze's illustration of 
Jasper and the old Palmetto Fort, may contribute 
an agreeable diversion to the minds of gentlemen 
habitually engrossed in the discussion of grave 
concerns of state," — ("Journal of the (Secession) 
Convention," p. W225, April i, 1861.) 

I can quite imagine that this invitation was a 
source, to some of the members of that conven- 
tion, of great amusement, as being most unsuit- 
able to their frame of mind. 

My father's full sympathy with the convention 
is shown by the following extract from Brant and 
Fuller's " Eminent and Representative Men of the 
Carolinas": 

"Robert Francis Withers Allston, South Caro- 
lina statesman, scholar, and agriculturist, was 
born April 21, 1801. . . . During the nulHfica- 
[23I 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

tion era and for many years afterward Mr. All- 
ston was deputy adjutant-general of the militia, 
and from 1841 to 1864 was one of the trustees of 
South Carolina College at Columbia. ... In 
politics he belonged to the Jefferson and Calhoun 
school, believing in the complete sovereignty of 
the States." 

During his prolonged absences in Columbia my 
father did not like to leave my mother alone on 
the plantation, with no one but the negroes to 
care for the children, so he secured a good, reliable 
Irishwoman to take charge of the children and 
the nursery, with the others under her. Strange 
to say, this was never resented, and Mary O'Shea 
stayed with us about fifteen years, when some of 
her kinfolk called her away. We called her 
"May" and were devoted to her. She had her 
trials, for my father did not approve of fire in the 
room where the children slept, and this, along 
with the open window, was a terrible ordeal to 
May. The day-nursery, with its roaring open 
wood-fire, only made the contrast more distressing 
to her; she never became reconciled to it, and I 
only wonder that she stayed all those years. As 
soon as the older children were big enough, we 

[24] 



PLANTER AND CITIZEN 



had an English governess — Miss Wells first, and 
afterward Miss Ayme. 

I have asked my brother, Charles Petigru AIl- 
ston, to write for me what he remembered of my 
father, and I will insert here what he has written 
for me. 



[25] 



CHAPTER III 

MY BROTHER'S NARRATIVE 

MY holiday, the months of December, 
1863, and January, 1864, were passed 
with my father on the coast, where he 
had planting, salt boiling, and freighting up the 
rivers, to look after. Salt was a very scarce arti- 
cle at that time, and my father had it boiled from 
sea-water on the salt creeks of the Waccamaw 
seashore, behind Pawley's Island. The vats were 
made chiefly of old mill boilers, cut in half and 
mounted on brick, with furnace below for wood, 
and a light shed above, to protect from the 
weather. A scaffold was built out in the salt 
creek, and a pump placed there to lift the water 
about twenty feet, and from the pump a wooden 
trough carried the water to the boilers, some 
300 yards away, in the forest. At flood-tide, 
when the water came in from the sea, was the best 
time to pump, as the water had then more salt 
and less of the seepage water from the marsh- 
lands. Sometimes, when a man was upon the 
scaffold, pumping, a federal gunboat, lying off 
the coast, would throw a shell over the island, 
[26] 



MY BROTHER'S NARRATIVE 

which cut off the sight of the works, in the direc- 
tion of the smoke from the boiHng vats; when this 
happened the man came down in wild haste and 
made for the brush. These interruptions became 
so frequent that finally the boiling had to be 
done at night, when the smoke was not visible. 
My father sent me over to inspect the salt-works 
and report to him more than once, so that I was 
familiar with the situation. Wagons came long 
distances from the interior to buy or barter for 
salt. This work was carried on entirely by 
negroes, without any white man in charge. My 
father had the faculty for organization, and his 
negro men were remarkably well trained, intelli- 
gent, and self-reliant. Another work which he 
instituted and developed was the transporting of 
rice and salt up the rivers to the railroad. The 
ports, being blockaded, and no railroad within 
forty miles, it became necessary to make some 
outlet for the rice-crop to get to market and to 
the army. He had two lighters built, which were 
decked over and secured from weather, and car- 
ried from 150 to 200 tierces (600 pounds each) of 
clean or marketable rice. On each lighter he put 
a captain, with a crew of eight men. These 
lighters were loaded at the rice-mill and taken up 
[27] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

the Pee Dee River, to the railroad bridge near 
Mars BIufF, to Society Hill, and sometimes to 
Cheraw. It was a long, hard trip, and when the 
freshet was up it seemed sometimes to be impos- 
sible to carry a loaded barge against the current, 
by hand — but it was done. At such times the 
only progress was made by carrying a line ahead, 
making fast to a tree on the river-bank, and then 
all hands warping the boat up by the capstan; 
then make fast and carry the line ahead again. 
The crew were all able men. They had plenty to 
eat and seemed to enjoy themselves. I have 
often been with my father when the boats returned 
from a trip and the captain came to make his 
report; it was worth listening to; the most minute 
account of the trip, with all its dangers and diffi- 
culties. There was seldom a charge of any seri- 
ous character against any of the crew; each knew 
that such a charge made by the captain meant 
the immediate discharge from the crew and a 
return to field work. 

My father also sent rice up the Black River 
to the Northeastern Railroad at Kingstree, and 
finally built a warehouse, making a new station, 
which is now Salter's; here he put a very intelli- 
gent negro, Sam Maham, in charge; he received 

[28 1 



MY BROTHER'S NARRATIVE 

the rice from the captains of the river-craft, and 
deHvered it to the railroad on orders, and I have 
never heard a word of complaint against him. 
Black River, however, had to be navigated by 
smaller craft than the Pee Dee, open flats, boats 
square at each end, and 50 feet long by 12 feet 
wide. I well remember the report made by the 
captain of the first crew sent up Black River. It 
was thrilling in parts. He had to cut his way 
through after leaving the lower river, which was 
open for navigation. The river had never been 
used high up for that sort of craft, and was full 
of logs, etc.; besides, in places it was difficult to 
find the right channel, and his description of 
going through a section where the river was 
broken up by low islands, or shoals into several 
apparent channels, all of which were shallow, ex- 
cept one, was most exciting. None of these men 
had ever been on this river or in that locality 
before, and only the drilling and direction given 
them by my father could have carried them 
through; but they went through, and after that 
there was a regular line going. But these flats 
being smaller and open and no decks, were much 
more liable to damage the cargo; still very little 
was lost, strange to say. They had good sail- 
[29] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

cloth covers, and the crews took an interest in 
the work. The captain and crew making the 
best record were always well rewarded. 

I became familiar with all this work during the 
winter of 1863-64. My father wanted me to 
learn as much as possible of each branch of the 
work, and knew how to direct my attention to 
the chief details to be studied and worked out. 

At night we sat together and had milk and po- 
tatoes, with sassafras tea for supper, and it was 
very good. One who has never had to depend on 
sassafras tea does not know how good it is. My 
father had many opportunities for getting in all 
the supplies that he wanted, as well as for mak- 
ing a good deal of money by exchanging his rice 
and salt for cotton, and then sending the cotton 
out by the blockade-runners to Nassau; but he 
was opposed to the running of the blockade for 
private gain. How often as we sat by the fire in 
the evenings did he talk to me on that and other 
subjects of public interest. His idea was that 
the Confederate Government should control the 
cotton; buy it up at home, pay for it in gold, ship 
it out by blockade-runners, sell it in Europe for 
the government, and bring in such supplies as 
were most needed — medicines, shoes, clothes, as 
I30] 



MY BROTHER'S NARRATIVE 

well as arms, etc. In this way, he said, the gov- 
ernment would be free from the horde of specu- 
lators who were making fortunes out of our mis- 
fortunes, and thus be able to build up a financial 
standing in Europe that would go far toward de- 
ciding the status of the Confederate States. He 
was most earnest on this subject, and I know that 
he made more than one trip to Richmond for the 
purpose of urging some such measure on President 
Davis, but he returned disappointed, and I re- 
member after one trip he seemed entirely hope- 
less as to the outcome. Feeling, as he did, he 
would never avail himself of the many opportuni- 
ties which offered, except to get such things as 
were prime necessities. In February, 1864, I re- 
turned to my school in Abbeville district. I drove 
away from the Chicora house on my way to the 
railroad, forty miles distant, leaving my father 
standing on the platform at the front door. That 
was my last sight of him. He died in April, 1864, 
and though I was written for, the mails and trans- 
portation were so slow that he was buried before 
I got home. 

I returned to school after being at home a few 
weeks in April, and remained until the following 
October, when the school was dismissed. The 
I31] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

call for recruits for the army was now from sixteen 
years up, and would include many who were at 
the school. I went to my mother at Society Hill 
and was to get ready to join the corps of State 
Cadets. 

While I was at Society Hill my mother heard 
from the overseer at Chicora Wood, that he had 
some trouble about repairing the freight-lighters. 
This being a most important matter and requiring 
to be promptly attended to, my mother decided 
to send me down to see if I could help the over- 
seer. So I started off on a little brown horse to 
ride the ninety miles down to the rice country. 
I arrived safely, and after a few days began to 
make headway with the work. The largest 
lighter had been in the water a good long time 
and was very heavy to haul out, but was badly 
in need of repairing. It was my first experience 
of unwilling labor; the hands were sulky. My 
father's talks and teaching now came in to the 
aid of my own knowledge of the negro nature, 
and before long I had the big lighter hauled up, 
high and dry. We had and could get no oakum 
for calking, but my father had devised a very 
respectable substitute in cypress bark; it was 
stripped from the tree and then broken, some- 

[32] 



MY BROTHER'S NARRATIVE 

what as flax is, and then worked in the hands 
until quite pliable; this did wonderfully well, 
though it did not last as well as oakum. If pitch 
was freely appHed to the freshly calked seams a 
very good job was made. We got the lighter 
calked and cleaned and simply painted, and put 
back in the water ready for work. 

I then returned to my mother at Society Hill 
and remained there until I joined the Arsenal 
Cadets, and we entered the active service. 

My father's eldest brother, Joseph, while a stu- 
dent at the South Carolina College was appointed 
lieutenant in the United States army by Presi- 
dent Madison and served in Florida in the War 
of 1812. He attained the rank of general, and 
all his life was given that title. Though he died 
at forty-five he had been married three times, his 
last wife, Mary Allan, only, having children. She 
had tv/o sons, Joseph Blyth and William Allan. 
She lived only a few years after her husband, and 
the little boys were left to the guardianship of 
my father and the care of my mother, and Chicora 
Wood was their home until they grew up. Joseph 
Blyth Allston was a gifted man, a clever lawyer 
and eloquent pleader. His literary talent was 
above the ordinary; he has written some poems of 
[33] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

great beauty; "Stack Arms" and the longer poem, 
"Sumter," deserve a high place in the war poetry 
of the South. By the merest chance a sketch of 
my father, written by him, at the request of some 
one whose individuality is unknown to me, has 
fallen into my hands at this moment, and I gladly 
quote from it here, leaving out only the repeti- 
tions of facts already stated : 

"All the offices held by Robert F. W. Allston 
in the State were filled by him with credit to him- 
self and usefulness to the country, but his private 
virtues gave him a much more enduring claim to 
the regard of his contemporaries and of posterity. 
In the forties he had been offered the office of 
governor and had peremptorily declined it. This 
was not for want of ambition, but because he had 
dined at Colonel Hampton's a few days before, in 
company with Mr. Hammond, who aspired to 
that office, and without formally pledging him- 
self, had tacitly acquiesced in his candidacy. A 
liberal economy marked his expenditures, and a 
cultivated hospitality made his home the centre 
of a large circle of friends. The rector of the 
parish (Prince Frederick's) dined with him every 
Sunday, with his wife. At dessert the Methodist 
minister generally arrived from some other ap- 

[34I 



MY BROTHER'S NARRATIVE 

pointment, took a glass of wine, and then preached 
to the negroes in the plantation chapel in the 
avenue, constructed in the Gothic style by his 
negro carpenters, under his direction. 

**He did much to improve the breeds of cattle, 
sheep, and swine in his neighborhood, and was a 
constant correspondent of the Bureau of Agricul- 
ture at Washington. He was an active member 
of the South Carolina Jockey Club, of the St. 
Cecilia Society, and of the South Carolina Histori- 
cal Society of Charleston; of the Winyah Indigo 
Society of Georgetown, of which he was long 
president; of the Hot and Hot Fish Club of Wac- 
camaw; the Winyah and All Saints Agricultural 
Society, and the Agricultural Association of the 
Southern States. He was also a member of the 
Order of Masons. 

"He was an eminently successful rice-planter 
and made many improvements in the cultivation 
of that crop and the drainage of the rice-lands. 

"'Allston on Sea-Coast Crops' is the title of a 
valuable treatise on this subject, which unfortu- 
nately is now out of print. Yet one of his best 
overseers, when asked if he was not a great 
planter, replied: 

"*No, sir, he is no planter at all.' 
[35] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

"'To what, then, do you attribute his great 
success ? ' 

"'To his power of organization, sir, and the 
system and order which he enforces on all whom 
he controls.' 

"That was indeed the keynote of his character. 
He was most regular in his own habits, and all 
within his reach felt the influence of his example. 
Especially marked was it upon the negroes whom 
he owned. Even at this day (1900) they show 
by their thrift and industry the influence of his 
training and speak of him with pride and aff^ection. 

"Political matters and his duty as a member of 
the Protestant Episcopal Church often called him 
to the North, and sometimes he took a trip there 
with his family for pleasure. In 1855 he took his 
wife and eldest daughter abroad, and they trav- 
elled all over the Continent. He took a prize at 
the Paris Exposition that year for rice grown on 
his plantation, Chicora Wood, Pee Dee — a silver 
medal. The rice was presented to the war office, 
Department of Algeria, in the autumn, and was 
in such perfect preservation (in glass jars) that in 
the succeeding year it was again exhibited under 
the auspices of the Department of War, and was 
adjudged worthy of a gold medal [which has been 
[36] 



MY BROTHER'S NARRATIVE 

placed in the National Museum in Washington 
for the present. — E. W. A. P.]. 

"Usually, however, he spent the summers on 
the sea-beach of Pawley's Island, and enforced by 
example as well as precept the duty of the land- 
owner to those dependent on him. Here he fished 
and hunted deer, of which he has been known to 
send home two by lo a.m., shot on his way to the 
plantation. Here he was within easy reach of his 
estates, and could exercise an intelligent and ele- 
vating control over the 600 negroes who called 
him master. This beautiful and bountiful coun- 
try, watered by the noble stream of the Wacca- 
maw and the Pee Dee, and washed by the waves 
of the Atlantic Ocean, was very near to his heart. 
And here, amid the scenes in which he had spent 
his life, he died at his home, Chicora Wood, April 
7, 1864, and lies buried in the yard of the old 
Church of Prince George, Winyah, at George- 
town, South Carolina." — {Extract from paper by 
Jos. Blyth Jllston.) 

And now I must leave this imperfect portrait 
of my father. Of his illness and death I shall tell 
elsewhere. 

His taking away was softened to me afterward 
[37] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

by the feeling that he did not live to see the down- 
fall of the hopes he had cherished for the success 
of the Confederacy, nor the humiliation of the 
State he had so loved, when its legislative halls 
were given up to the riotous caricature of State 
government by the carpetbaggers and negroes, 
who disported themselves as officials of the State 
of South Carolina, from the surrender of Lee until 
1876, when Wade Hampton redeemed the State 
from its degradation. 

It was only Hampton's wonderful power and 
influence over the men, brave as lions, whom he 
had led in battle, that prevented awful bloodshed 
and woe. In 1876 I heard a high-spirited, pas- 
sionate man, who had been one of Butler's most 
daring scouts, say, when hearing of a youth whose 
front teeth had been knocked out by a negro on 
the street: "Why, I would let a negro knock me 
down and trample on me, without lifting a hand, 
for Hampton has said: 'Forbear from retaliation, 
lift not a hand, no matter what the provocation; 
the State must be redeemed !'" And, thank God, 
it was redeemed ! Those brave men did not suf- 
fer and bear insult and assault in vain. My faith 
in my father is so great that I cannot help feeling 
that if he had Hved he would have been able to 
[38] 



MY BROTHER'S NARRATIVE 

prevent things from reaching the depths they did. 
Of one thing I am certain, that if his Hfe had been 
spared until after the war we as a family would not 
have been financially ruined. He would have been 
able to evolve some system by which, with his 
own people, he could have worked the free labor 
successfully and continued to make large crops of 
rice and corn, as he had done all through the war. 
His was a noble life, and Milton's words come to 
my mind: 

"There's no place here for tears or beating of the 
breast." 



[39l 



PART II 
MY MOTHER 



CHAPTER IV 
EARLY DAYS AND OLD FIELD SCHOOL 

MY mother, Adele Petigru, was the grand- 
daughter of Jean Louis Gibert, one of 
the Pasteurs du Desert, who brought the 
last colony of Huguenots to South CaroHna in 
April, 1764, after enduring persecution in France, 
holding his little flock together through great peril 
and having the forbidden services of his church in 
forests, in barns, at the midnight hour, in order 
to escape imprisonment and death. There was a 
price set upon his head for some years before he 
made up his mind to leave his beloved land and 
escape with his little band of faithful to America. 
These perils and the martyrdom of some of his 
followers is told in "Les Freres Gibert." It is a 
thrilling story, but too long to tell here. The two 
brothers, Etienne and Jean Louis, escaped to 
England, the little flock following one by one. 
King George III made a grant of land in South 
CaroHna to Jean Louis for the settlement of the 
colony. He retained Etienne in England as his 
chaplain. 

[43I 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

The difficulties and setbacks encountered by the 
little band were most harrowing and discouraging, 
but at last they reached the shores of what was 
to them the promised land, and disembarked at 
Charleston, South Carolina, April 14, 1764, from 
which city they made their way some 300 miles 
into the interior of the State where their grant 
was. Their difficulties were by no means over; 
indeed, to them it seemed sometimes as if they 
were only begun. The wild rugged wilderness 
where they were to establish themselves, they 
called by the names they had left in their beautiful 
France, New Bordeaux and Abbeville, and they 
set to work to clear land and plant the cuttings of 
grape-vines to make wine, and the cuttings of mul- 
berry to carry on the manufacture of silk, which 
were their industries at home. It is hard for us now 
to realize what they had to encounter and endure 
— wild beasts, Indians, difficulties of transporta- 
tion, of transforming the big trees of the forest 
into lumber suitable to building houses; but all 
these they conquered. They built homes, they 
planted vineyards and orchards and mulberry- 
groves, and succeeded in the manufacture of silk 
with their spinning-wheels and hand-looms. There 
is at the old home place in Abbeville now one of 

(44] 



EARLY DAYS 



the little spinning-wheels with which the silk was 
spun, that the colony sent with pride as a gift to 
be made into a dress for the royal wardrobe of 
the Queen of England. 

My great-grandfather was a man of executive 
ability and strength, with that personal charm 
which made him intensely beloved and revered by 
his little flock; and they prospered as long as he 
lived, but, alas, his life was cut short by an unfor- 
tunate accident. He had brought with him from 
France a devoted and capable attendant, Pierre 
Le Roy, who in this wilderness filled many and 
diverse offices; he delighted to vary the often very 
limited diet of the pasteur by preparing for him 
dainty dishes of mushrooms with which he was 
familiar in the old country. There are many va- 
rieties here unknown there, and any one who 
knows this delicious but dangerous vegetable, 
knows how easily confounded are the good and 
the poisonous; the deadly Aminita resembles very 
closely one of the best edible mushrooms; we know 
not exactly how, but one night the dainty dish 
proved fatal to the great and good pasteur, and 
his flock was left desolate in August, 1773, just 
nine years after their arrival in the New World. 

Jean Louis Gibert had married Isabeau Bouti- 
[45] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

ton, a fellow emigrant and sister of his assistant 
minister, Pierre Boutiton. She was left a widow 
very young, with two little daughters, Louise and 
Jeanne, and one son, Joseph, to struggle with the 
difficult new life. I cannot pursue the fortunes 
of the colony, but without the leader and coun- 
sellor on whom they leaned the colony soon be- 
gan to disintegrate and disperse, and their de- 
scendants are now scattered all over the country. 
But of this I am sure, wherever they have gone 
they have carried their strong, upright influence, 
always raising the standards and ideals of the 
communities they entered. 

Little Louise Gibert very early married William 
Pettigrew, a blue-eyed, fair-haired young neigh- 
bor, who was charmed by her dark beauty. His 
grandparents had come from Ireland and settled 
in Pennsylvania, from which State their sons had 
scattered, Charles settling in North Carolina, 
where he was to become the first bishop of the 
Episcopal Church, and William settling in South 
Carolina as a farmer. 

They had a large family, four sons and five 
daughters: 

James Louis, who became a very distinguished 
man, a lawyer. 

[46] 




JAMES LOUIS PETIGRU. 
Miniature by Frascr. 



EARLY DAYS 



John, clever and witty, but the ne'er-do-well 

of the family. 
Tom, who died a captain in the U. S. navy. 
Charles, who graduated at West Point. 
The daughters were: 

Jane Gibert, who married John North. 
Mary, who never married. 
Louise, married Philip Johnston Porcher. 
Adele, married Robert Francis Withers Alls- 
ton. 
Harriet, married Henry Deas Lesesne. 
The sisters were all women of rare beauty, but 
Mary. Outsiders never could decide which was 
the most beautiful, but, of course, each family 
thought their own mother entitled to the golden 
apple. My mother was painted by the artist 
Sully when she was twenty-two, just a year after 
the birth of her first child, Benjamin, when she 
was so ill that her hair was cut, so she appears in 
the portrait with short brown curls, and is very 
lovely. There is a portrait of her painted by 
Flagg, in middle life. When she died in her 
eighty-seventh year she was still beautiful, with 
brown, wavy hair only sprinkled with gray. 

The tradition in my mother's father's family 
was that the Pettigrews had come from France 
[47] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and 
had gone to Scotland, when they had changed the 
spelHng of the name from Petigru, and had even- 
tually moved to Ireland. This idea was, of 
course, pleasant to the little Frenchwoman, and 
when her eldest son, James Louis, grew up and 
proposed to change the spelling of his name and 
revert to the French spelling she was delighted, 
and the father consented that the children should 
spell the name as they preferred, but he declined 
to change his. So on his and his wife's tombstone 
in the most interesting little God's acre at the old 
home in Abbeville, his name is WilHam Pettigrew, 
while all his children are recorded as Petigru. 
My mother said to me not long before her death 
that she felt it had been a mistake, as there was 
no survivor of the Petigru name, all the sons hav- 
ing died. But I do not agree with her, for my 
uncle, James L. Petigru, was a great man — heart, 
soul, and mind — and left a mark in his State, 
having codified her laws with knowledge and wis- 
dom. He was almost the only man in Charleston 
who was opposed to secession, — I may almost say 
the only man in the State.* But he was so revered 



* I remember now two other men who were opposed to the war ■ 
Nicholas Williams of Society Hill, and Gov. Perry of Greenville. 



[48] 



EARLY DAYS 



and beloved that, at a time when party feeHng 
was intense, he walked out of his pew in St. 
Michael's Church (which he never failed to occupy 
on Sunday) the first time the Prayer for the Presi- 
dent of the United States was left out of the ser- 
vice, and no one ever said one word of criticism or 
disapproval. In a period when party politics ran 
high and bitter feeHng was intense, it was a won- 
derful tribute to a man's character and integrity 
that, even though running counter to the intense 
united feeling of the community, love and respect 
for him should have protected him from attack. 

My mother always talked with great pleasure 
of her early Hfe. She spoke with admiration and 
love which amounted to adoration of her "little 
mother." Her father took second place always in 
her narrative, though he was a most delightful 
companion — very clever and full of wit, a great 
reader, and it was his habit to read aloud in the 
evenings, while the family sat around the fire, 
each one with some appointed task. The elder 
girls sewed, while all the children had their baskets 
of cotton to pick, for in those days the gin had 
not been invented and the seed had to be carefully 
picked from the cotton by hand ! It would seem 
a weary task to us, but they regarded it as a 
[49] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

game, and ran races as to who should pick the 
most during the long winter evenings while my 
grandfather read Milton, Wordsworth, Shake- 
speare, and other masters of Hterature. When 
one contrasts those evenings, those influences on 
the minds of children, with the amusements and 
diversions deemed necessary to the young of the 
present day, one does not wonder at the pleasure- 
loving race we are becoming. Add to this that 
there were no little story-books to dissipate the 
minds of children. My mother's ideal of a story- 
book was her beloved Plutarch's "Lives," and I 
remember still with intense regret her disappoint- 
ment when, I having accomplished the task of 
learning to read fluently, she one morning placed 
in my lap a large volume with very good print, 
and turned to the Life of Themistocles, which she 
had so loved. Perhaps if it had not been for the 
long s's which adorned this beautiful edition of 
Plutarch it might have been more of a success, 
but at the end of the half-hour I announced that 
I saw no pleasure in such a dull book. ... I 
would gladly read to her from one of my story- 
books, and then she would see what a really nice 
book was. My dear mother was so pained. She 
had had the same experience with the older chil- 

[50] 



EARLY DAYS 



dren, but she thought me very bright and felt 
sure that she would find a congenial mind in her 
"little Bessie." Seeing how hurt she was and 
that she had set her heart on that special book, 
I did not insist on my book but came every day 
and read the Plutarch aloud; but I never enjoyed 
it, which she could never understand. 

This thing of bringing all reading matter pre- 
sented to a child down to its level is a great 
mistake; it lowers ideals and taste. Stories while 
you are a child, and then romances, novels, de- 
tective tales, corrupt the taste until it is so 
reduced that there are not many young people 
now who can read Scott's novels with any more 
pleasure than I read Plutarch at ten. My moth- 
er's school was the old field school of the long ago. 
The country was thinly settled and the schools 
widely separated, so that children had to make an 
all-day business of it. The nearest school to the 
family home was on Long Cane, three miles away, 
and mamma, at first accompanied by an older sis- 
ter and brother, later alone, walked three miles 
to school every day. She took her little basket 
of lunch, a substantial one, for she did not get 
home again until late afternoon. It is quite sur- 
prising to find what excellent instruction was 

[511 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 



given in these **old field schools." Education 
was not so widely diversified, but it was more 
thorough and of a higher kind, as far as it went. 
Mamma learned to prove sums by "casting out 
the nines" in a wonderful way, which no one else 
that I ever saw knew anything about. Her mind 
was stored with treasures of good poetry which 
she had been required to memorize in school. On 
her solitary walk home she was never lonely. 
The birds and the little inhabitants of the woods 
were her delight. At a big chestnut-tree about a 
mile from home she had special friends — two 
squirrels who ran down from their castle in the 
top of the tree when they heard her coming, and 
she always reserved some of her lunch for them. 
She sat at the root of the tree and played with 
them until she saw the sun about to sink below 
the horizon, when she picked up her little school- 
bag and started at a run for the last stretch of her 
way home. 



[52] 



CHAPTER V 

DADDY TOM AND DADDY PRINCE — DEATH 
OF LITTLE MOTHER SO BELOVED 

THE farms of the up-country as a rule re- 
quired few hands, and so each farmer 
owned only a few negroes, and, of course, 
the relations between master and slave were dif- 
ferent from those in the low-country, where each 
plantation had a hundred or more negroes, which 
necessitated separate villages, where the negroes 
lived more or less to themselves. In the up-country 
it was more like one large family. In my mother's 
home there were three quite remarkable, tall, fine- 
looking, and very intelligent Africans who had 
been bought by her grandfather from the ship 
which brought them to this country. Tom, 
Prince, and Maria — they occupied an important 
place in my mother's recollections of her early 
childhood. They had been of a royal family in 
their own land, and had been taken in battle by 
an enemy tribe with which they were at war, and 
sold to a slave-ship. No one ever doubted their 
claim to royal blood, for they were so superior to 
the ordinary Africans brought out. They were 

[53] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

skilled in the arts of their own country, and had 
artistic tastes and clever hands. Daddy Tom 
and Daddy Prince told tales of their wild forests, 
which the children were never tired of hearing 
nor they of telling. Maum Maria made wonder- 
ful baskets and wove beautiful rugs from the 
rushes that grew along Long Cane Creek. One 
day as she sat on the ground weaving a rug which 
she had hung from a tree, and my mother was lis- 
tening to her stories of her home in Africa, the 
little girl said in a voice of sympathy: "Maum 
'Ria, you must be dreadfully sorry they took you 
away from all that, and brought you to a strange 
land to work for other people." Maum Maria 
stopped her work, rose to her full height — she 
was very tall and straight — clasped her hands 
and said, dropping a deep courtesy as she spoke: 
**My chile, ebery night on my knees I tank my 
Hebenly Father that he brought me here, for 
without that I wud neber hev known my Saviour !" 
She remained, hands clasped, and a look of ec- 
stasy on her face, for some time before she sat 
down and resumed her work, and the little girl, 
greatly impressed, asked no more questions that 
day. When grandmother died, she left these 
three free, with a little sum to be given them 

[54] 



DADDY TOM AND DADDY PRINCE 

yearly; not much, for she had little to leave. 
Daddy Tom took his freedom, but Daddy Prince 
and Maum Maria said they were grateful to their 
beloved mistress, but they would rather remain 
just as they were; they had all they needed and 
were happy and loved their white family, and 
they did not want to make any change. 

My grandfather Pettigrew, with all his charm- 
ing qualities of wit and good humor, had no 
power to make or keep money. And among the 
few sad memories my mother had of her childhood 
was that of seeing her beloved little mother sitting 
at the window looking out, while tears coursed 
down her cheeks, as she saw the sheriflF taking off 
all their cattle, and two families of their negroes 
to be sold ! , . . her husband having gone security 
for a worthless neighbor. My mother told it with 
tears, even when she was very old, the scene 
seemed to come so vividly before her of her moth- 
er's silent grief. 

It is curious to me that my paternal grand- 
father, Ben Allston, also lost his plantation for 
a security debt, having signed a paper when he 
was under age for a cousin who was in trouble 
pecuniarily. Grandfather was advised by a law- 
yer to contest the matter, as he had been a minor 
[55] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

and it was not valid, but he would not avail him- 
self of that plea, I am thankful to say, and lost 
the beautiful and valuable plantation which he 
had inherited, Brook Green on the Waccamaw. 
That is the only point of similarity between my 
two grandfathers, however, as they were totally 
different types, one Scotch-Irish, the other pure 
English. 

The little Frenchwoman, so beloved by her 
children, did not live to show any sign of age, and 
the memory remained with my mother of her 
beauty, her olive skin and black hair, in which no 
strands of white appeared, and her graceful, 
small, active figure and tiny hands and feet. She 
always spoke broken English, but, as her husband 
did not speak or understand French, she never 
spoke it with her children through courtesy to 
him, and none of them spoke French. Her illness 
was short and the family had no idea it was to be 
fatal, but evidently she recognized it, for she 
called my mother and kissed her, and said: "My 
child, I want to tell you that you have been my 
greatest comfort. I want you to remember that 
always." 



[56 



CHAPTER VI 

MARRIAGE 

i^FTER the mother's death the home seemed 
/— % very desolate; and when the eldest broth- 
er's, James L. Petigru's, wife proposed 
most generously to take the younger girls to live 
with them in Charleston, so that their education 
might be carried on, their father gladly consented, 
and my mother from that time lived with her 
brother in Charleston until her marriage, having 
the best teachers that the city afforded and enjoy- 
ing the most charming and witty social surround- 
ings. Aunt Petigru, though a beauty and belle, 
was a great invalid, so that the care of the house 
and her two young children came much on the 
sisters-in-law. Louise, two years older than my 
mother, married first and was established in her 
own home. After two years in society, which was 
very gay then, my mother became engaged to 
Robert Allston. When the family heard of the 
engagement they were greatly disturbed that my 
mother should contemplate burying her beauty 
and brilliant social gifts in the country, and her 
sister Louise thought fit to remonstrate, being a 
[57] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

matron properly established in her city residence. 
She made a formal visit and opened her batteries 
at once. 

"My dear Adele, I have come to remonstrate 
with you on this extraordinary announcement 
you have made ! You cannot think of accepting 
this young man. Mr. Allston lives winter and 
summer in the country. He will take you away 
from all your friends and family. That he is 
good-looking I grant you, and I am told he is a 
man of means; but it is simply madness for you 
with your beauty and your gifts to bury yourself 
on a rice-plantation. Perhaps I would not feel so 
shocked and surprised if you did not have at 
your feet one of the very best matches in the city. 
As it is, I feel I should be criminal if I let you 
make this fatal mistake without doing all I can 
to prevent it. If you accept Mr. Blank, you will 
have one of the most beautiful homes in the city. 
You will have ample means at your command 
and you will be the centre of a brilliant social cir- 
cle. My dear sister, my love for you is too great 
for me to be silent. I must warn you. I must 
ask you why you are going to do this dreadful 
thing?" 

My mother was at first much amused; but as 
[58] 



MARRIAGE 



my aunt continued to grow more and more ex- 
cited, contrasting her fate as my father's wife 
with the rosy picture of what it would be if she 
accepted the city lover, mamma said : " Louise, you 
want to know why I am going to marry Robert 
Allston ? I will tell you: — because he is as obsti- 
nate as the devil. In our family we lack will- 
power; that is our weakness." 

My aunt rose with great dignity, saying: **I 
will say good morning. Your reason is as ex- 
traordinary as your action." And she swept out 
of the room, leaving my mother master of the 
field. 

It was indeed a brave thing for my mother to 
do, to face the lonely, obscure life, as far as so- 
ciety went, of a rice-planter's wife. She had been 
born in the country and lived there until she was 
fifteen, but it was a very different country from 
that to which she was going. It was in the upper 
part of the State, the hill country, where there 
were farms instead of plantations, and there were 
pleasant neighbors, the descendants of the French 
colony, all around, and each farmer had only one 
or two negroes, as the farms were small. In the 
rice country the plantations were very large, hun- 
dreds of acres in each, requiring hundreds of 

[59] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

negroes to work them. And, the plantations 
being so big, the neighbors were far away and 
few in number. Whether my mother had any 
realization of the great difference I do not know. 
I hope she never repented her decision. I know 
she was very much in love with her blue-eyed, 
blond, silent suitor. They were complete con- 
trasts and opposites in every way. Papa outside 
was considered a severe, stern man, but he had 
the tenderness of a very tender woman if you were 
hurt or in trouble — only expression was difficult 
to him, whereas to my mother it was absolutely 
necessary to express with a flow of beautiful 
speech all she felt. 

They were married at St. Michael's Church, 
Charleston, April 21, 1832, and went into the 
country at once. There was a terrible storm of 
wind and rain that day, which seemed to the dis- 
approving family an appropriate sign of woe. But 
it was only the feminine members of the family 
who were so opposed to my father. My uncle ap- 
proved of mamma's choice, for he recognized in my 
father rare qualities of mind and spirit and that 
thing we call character which is so hard to define. 

My uncle feared my mother would find only 
raw, untrained servants in her new home, so he 
[60] 



MARRIAGE 



gave her a well-trained maid and seamstress to 
whom she was accustomed, and who was devoted 
to her. Maum Lavinia was a thoroughly trained, 
competent house-servant, and must have been a 
great comfort, though she had a terrible temper. 
She married on the plantation and had a large 
family, dying only a few years ago, keeping all 
her faculties to extreme age. One of her grand- 
sons is a prosperous, respected man in New York 
now, Hugh Roberton. I keep track of all the 
descendants of our family servants, and it gives 
me great pleasure when they make good and do 
credit to their ancestry. It does not always hap- 
pen. In so many instances, to my great regret, 
they have fallen in character and good qualities 
instead of rising; — without training or discipHne 
that is to be expected. 

Mamma has told me of her dismay when she 
found what a big household she had to manage 
and control. Not long after they were married 
she went to my father, almost crying, and remon- 
strated: "There are too many servants; I do not 
know what to do with them. There is Mary, the 
cook; Milly, the laundress; Caroline, the house- 
maid; Cinda, the seamstress; Peter, the butler; 
Andrew, the second dining-room man; Aleck, the 

[6i] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

coachman; and Moses, the gardener. And George, 
the scullion, and the boy in the yard besides ! I 
cannot find work for them ! After breakfast, 
when they line up and ask, *Miss, wha' yu' want 
me fu' do to-day?' I feel like running away. 
Please send some of them away, for Lavinia is 
capable of doing the work of two of them. Please 
send them away, half of them, at least." 

But papa made her understand that he could 
not. These were house-servants; they had been 
trained for the work, even if they were not effi- 
cient and well trained. It would be a cruelty to 
send them into the field, to work which they were 
not accustomed to. Then he said: "As soon as 
you get accustomed to the life here you will know 
there is plenty for them to do. The house is large 
and to keep it perfectly clean takes constant work. 
Then there is the constant need of having clothes 
cut and made for the babies and Httle children on 
the place; the nourishment, soup, etc., to be made 
and sent to the sick. You will find that there is 
really more work than there are hands for, in a 
little while." And truly she found it so. But it 
took all her own precious time to direct and plan 
and carry out the work. The calls to do some- 
thing which seemed important and necessary were 

[62] 



MARRIAGE 



incessant. One day my father came in and asked 
her to go with him to see a very ill man. She an- 
swered: "My dear Mr. Urston" (she always called 
papa Mr. Allston, but she said it so fast that it 
sounded like that), "I know nothing about sick- 
ness, and there is no earthly use for me to go with 
you. I have been having the soup made and 
sending it to him regularly, but I cannot go to 
see him, for I can do him no good." He answered 
with a grave, hurt look: "You are mistaken; you 
can do him good. At any rate, it is my wish that 
you go." Mamma got her hat and came down the 
steps full of rebellion, but silent. He helped her 
into the buggy and they drove off down the beau- 
tiful avenue of live oaks, draped with gray moss, 
out to the negro quarter, which is always called 
by them "the street." 

The houses were built regularly about fifty 
yards apart on each side of a wide road, with fruit- 
trees on each side. There are generally about 
twelve houses on each side, so that it makes a lit- 
tle village. On Chicora Wood plantation there 
were three of these settlements, a little distance 
apart, each on a little elevation with good South- 
ern exposure, and all named. One was called 
California, one Aunty Phibby Hill, and one Crick 

[63] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

Hill, because Chapel Creek, a beautiful stream of 
water, ran along parallel with it and very near. 
In California, which was the middle settlement, 
was the hospital, called by the darkies "the sick- 
house." To this, which was much larger than 
the other houses, built for one family each, my 
father drove. He helped mamma out and they 
entered; the room was large and airy, and there 
on one of the beds lay an ill man with closed 
eyes and labored breathing; one could not but 
see that death was near. He appeared uncon- 
scious, with a look of great pain on his face. My 
father called his name gently, "Pompey." He 
opened his eyes and a look of delight replaced the 
one of pain. "My marster!" he exclaimed. 
"Yu cum! O, I tu glad! I tink I bin gwine, 
widout see yu once more." 

Papa said: "I've brought something good for 
you to look upon, Pompey. I brought your 
young mistress to see you," and he took mamma's 
hand and drew her to the side of the bed where 
Pompey could see her without effort. 

His whole face lit up with pleasure as he looked 
and he lifted up his hands and exclaimed: "My 
mistis ! I tank de Lawd. He let me lib fu' see 
you ! 'Tis like de light to my eye. God bless 

[64] 



MARRIAGE 



you, my missis." And turning his eyes to papa, 
he said: "Maussa, yu sure is chuse a beauty! 
'Tis like de face of a angel ! I kin res' better 
now, but, my marster, I'm goin' ! I want yu to 
pray fur me." 

So papa knelt by the bed and offered a fervent 
prayer that Pompey, who had been faithful in all 
his earthly tasks, should receive the great reward, 
and that he might be spared great suffering and 
distress in his going. Then he rose and pressed 
the hand which was held out to him, and went out 
followed by my mother. As they drove home she 
was filled with penitence and love. She wanted to 
express both, but as she glanced at my father she 
saw that his mind was far away and she could not. 
He was, in mind, with the dying man; he was full 
of self-questioning and solemn thought: "Had 
he been as faithful to every duty through life as 
Pompey in his humbler sphere had been?" No 
thought of his bride came to him. 

At last she spoke and said: "I thank you for 
having made me come with you, and I beg you 
to forgive my petulance about coming. I did not 
understand." He pressed her hand and kissed 
her but spoke no word, and they returned to the 
house in silence. 

[65] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

My heart has always been filled with sympathy 
for my mother when she told me these things of 
her early life, for I was very like her, and I do 
not know how she stood that stern silence which 
came over papa when he was moved. And yet I 
adored him and I think she did, but all the same 
it must have been hard. 

She found the life on the plantation a very full 
one and intensely interesting, but not at all the 
kind of life she had ever dreamed of or expected, 
a life full of service and responsibility. But where 
was the reading and study and self-improvement 
which she had planned ^ Something unexpected 
was always turning up to interrupt the programme 
laid out by her; little did she suspect that her 
mind and soul were growing apace in this appar- 
ently inferior life, as they could never have grown 
if her plans of self-improvement and study had 
been carried out. 



[66] 



CHAPTER VII 

MOVE TO CANAAN— AUNT BLYTHE 

THE cultivation of rice necessitated keeping 
the fields flooded with river water until it 
became stagnant, and the whole atmos- 
phere was polluted by the dreadful smell. No 
white person could remain on the plantation with- 
out danger of the most virulent fever, always 
spoken of as ** country fever." So the planters 
removed their families from their beautiful homes 
the last week in May, and they never returned 
until the first week in November, by which time 
cold weather had come and the danger of malarial 
fever gone. The formula was to wait for a black 
frost before moving; I believe that is purely a local 
expression; three white frosts make a black frost; 
that means that all the potato vines and all the 
other delicate plants had been killed so com- 
pletely that the leaves were black. 

At the end of May my father's entire household 
migrated to the sea, which was only four miles to 
the east of Chicora as the crow flies, but was only 
to be reached by going seven miles in a row- 
boat and four miles by land. The vehicles, 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

horses, cows, furniture, bedding, trunks, provi- 
sions were all put into great flats, some sixty by 
twenty feet, others even larger, at first dawn, and 
sent ahead. Then the family got into the row- 
boat and were rowed down the Pee Dee, then 
through Squirrel Creek, with vines tangled above 
them and water-lilies and flags and wild roses and 
scarlet lobelia all along the banks, and every now 
and then the hands would stop their song a 
moment to call out: "Missy, a alligator!" And 
there on the reeds and marsh in some sunny cove 
lay a great alligator basking in the sun, fast asleep. 
As soon as the sound of the oars reached him, he 
would plunge into the water, making great waves 
on which the boat rose and fell in a way suggestive 
of the ocean itself. The way was teeming with 
life; birds of every hue and note flew from tree to 
tree on the banks; here and there on top of a tall 
cypress a mother hawk could be seen sitting on 
her nest, looking down with anxious eye, while 
around, in ever-narrowing circles, flew her fierce 
mate, with shrill cries, threatening death to the 
intruder. No one who has not rowed through 
these creeks in the late spring or early summer 
can imagine the abundance and variety of life 
everywhere. On every log floating down the 
[68 1 



MOVE TO CANAAN — AUNT BLYTHE 

stream or lodged along the shore, on such a sum- 
mer day rows of Httle turtles can be seen fast 
asleep, just as many as the log will hold, ranging 
from the size of a dinner-plate to a dessert-plate, 
only longer than they are broad — the darkies 
call them "cooters" (they make a most delicious 
soup or stew) — so many it is hard to count the 
number one sees in one trip. Besides all this, 
there is the less-pleasing sight of snakes on the 
banks and sometimes on the tree overhanging 
the water, also basking in the sun so trying to 
human beings at midday. But my mother was 
enchanted with this row, so perfectly new to her, 
and the negro boat-songs also delighted her. 
There were six splendid oarsmen, who sang from 
the moment the boat got well under way. Oh, 
there is nothing like the rhythm and swing of 
those boat-songs. "In case if I neber see you 
any mo', I'm hopes to meet yu on Canaan's happy 
sho'," and "Roll, Jordan, Roll," and "Run, Mary, 
Run," "Drinkin Wine, Drinkin' Wine," "Oh, 
Zion!" I am filled with longing when I think of 
them. I was born at the seaside, and from that 
time until I was eighteen, the move from the plan- 
tation to the sea beach at the end of May, and 
the return home to the plantation the first week 
[69] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

in November were great events and a perfect joy. 
Of course, it was different for my mother, for 
the tearing up of stakes just as she had got accus- 
tomed to her new home and new Hfe, the packing 
up of everything necessary for comfort for every 
member of the household for the summer and 
autumn was terrific. It required so much thought, 
so many lists, so much actual labor. At the same 
time carpets, curtains, and all the winter clothing 
had to be aired, sunned, and put up with camphor 
against the moths. She was pretty well worn out 
and tired by this new aspect of her future life, this 
upheaval and earthquake to be gone through twice 
a year, so that when she stepped into the boat 
she was not her gayest self; but, when the things 
were all stored in, the lunch-baskets and valises 
and a big moss-wrapped bunch of roses, and the 
dogs at her feet; when papa, seated by her, took 
the rudder ropes, when the boat shot out into the 
river and the hands broke into song, preceded by 
each one calling aloud to the other, "Let's go, 
boys, let's go," she told me it was the most de- 
lightful revelation and sensation of her life almost. 
She had never been in a rowboat before; she had 
never been on a river. She had grown up in the 
interior, far in the hill country near the upper 

I 70] 



MOVE TO CANAAN — AUNT BLYTHE 

waters of the Savannah River, a rocky stream, 
where no woman ever thought of going in a boat. 
This swift, delightful movement, with the glo- 
rious sunshine and fresh morning breeze — for 
they always made an early start, there being so 
much to be done at the other end — made the row 
only too short. 

But new pleasures awaited her, for the flat 
with the horses had gone ahead of them, start- 
ing with the ebb tide, at four in the morning; 
and, when they landed at the wharf at Waverly 
on the Waccamaw (which belonged to my 
father's elder brother. General Joseph Allston, 
who died leaving his two sons, Joseph Blythe and 
William Allan, to papa's care and guardianship), 
they found the horses all ready saddled, and they 
mounted and rode the four miles to "Canaan," 
where they were to spend the summer. It was 
on the seashore, just at an inlet where the ocean 
view was; and, as mamma saw the great waves 
come rolling in, she was filled with joy anew. To 
me it has always been intoxicating, that first view 
each year of the waves rolling, rolling; and the 
smell of the sea, and the brilliant blue expanse; 
but then I was born there and it is like a renewal 
of birth. 

[71] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

My mother enjoyed her Hfe here. It was much 
simpler than that at the plantation, with fewer 
servants, and that she much enjoyed. They 
had breakfast at six o'clock every morning, and 
as soon as breakfast was over, papa mounted his 
horse and rode to Waverly, where the boat met 
him. His horse was put in the stable and he 
rowed to Chicora, went over all the crop, the rice- 
fields first, landing on the bank opposite the house 
and walking round all the planted fields, seeing 
that the water was kept on the rice just at the 
right depth, that the fields which had been dried 
for hoeing were dry enough to begin on them with 
the hoe. There is a real science in rice-planting, 
and my father was thoroughly versed in it and 
most diligent in seeing after the treatment of each 
field. He was always followed by the trunk 
minder, Jacob, and in every field Jacob went down 
the bank to the water edge and drew out a stalk 
or two of rice for papa to examine the root growth, 
by which the water is managed. This accom- 
plished, papa crossed to the house, where a horse 
was ready saddled. He mounted and rode all 
over the upland crop, corn, potatoes, oats, peas; 
went into the house, which Maum Mary kept 
fresh and clean, wrote a few letters, drank a glass 

[72] 



MOVE TO CANAAN — AUNT BLYTHE 

of buttermilk and ate some fruit, got into his boat 
again, and returned to the seashore for a three- 
o'clock dinner, having done a tremendous day's 
work; and he never failed, with all his work, to 
go into the garden and gather a bunch of roses 
and pink oleander to bring to mamma. Of course, 
his homecoming was the event of the day to my 
mother. 

Soon papa's aunt, Mrs. Blythe, came to be with 
them for the summer, which was a great pleasure 
to mamma. She was a woman of noble character 
and ample means, who was specially devoted to 
my father, having no children of her own, and 
recognizing in him a kindred nature. Aunt 
Blythe was a true specimen of the "grande dame" 
of the old South. She had been brought up to 
responsibility, to command herself and others; 
she was an old lady when mamma first knew her, 
but tall and stately in figure and beautiful in face. 
She brought her own barouche, horses, and coach- 
man and footman, and her own maid and laun- 
dress — in short, a retinue. I never saw Aunt 
Blythe, as she died before I was born, but the 
tales of her generosity and her grandeur which 
were told by white and black placed her in the 
category of fairies and other benign spirits. I 

[73] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

was named after Aunt Blythe, a rare instance of 
posthumous gratitude, I think; and my mother, 
in the way she did it, showed a sympathetic, ro- 
mantic understanding of Aunt Blythe's nature. 
She had been sought in marriage in her early 
youth by her first cousin, John Waties; but, when 
he approached her father and asked for his con- 
sent, he refused absolutely, as he disapproved of 
the marriage of cousins. So Aunt Blythe and 
her lover agreed not to be married during the 
father's Hfetime. Alas, alas ! John Waties died 
very soon ! He left all his property to his fiancee, 
which made her the rich woman of the family. 
This property included a large and valuable rice- 
plantation, with a large number of negroes. Aunt 
Blythe felt this a great trust and responsibility 
and most difficult to manage, for it was almost 
impossible to get an overseer who would treat the 
negroes with gentleness and justice. The men 
who sought the place of overseer in those days 
were invariably from the North, their one idea 
being to get as much work from the hands as 
possible, and, consequently, make as much money. 
Aunt Blythe could not live alone in this isolated 
spot, the barony of Friendfield (it is the planta- 
tion now owned by Doctor Baruch and kept by 

[74] 



MOVE TO CANAAN — AUNT BLYTHE 

him as a game-preserve), and, after trying one 
overseer after another, and finding them cruel and 
regardless in their treatment of her people, she 
accepted one of her many suitors. Doctor Blythe, 
who had been a surgeon in the Revolutionary 
War. She was then able to live on her planta- 
tion and to see that her negroes were kindly and 
properly managed and looked after. Mamma be- 
came devoted to Aunt Blythe and wanted to 
name her second daughter after her, but my 
father wanted her named after his mother, who 
had died a few years before his marriage, so he 
named her Charlotte; but mamma wanted Aunt 
Blythe's name in, so she asked to have the name 
Charlotte Frances — Aunt Blythe's name was 
Elizabeth Frances — and papa consented, but he 
always called the beautiful little girl Charlotte, 
while mamma called her Frances. She died when 
she was about four, a grief my mother felt to the 
very end, with strange poignancy. When, some 
years after Aunt Blythe's death, I made my ap- 
pearance on the scene, mamma named me for her; 
but, instead of giving me the very pretty name 
of her excellent husband, she gave me the name 
of the man she loved, John Waties. So, instead 
of being Elizabeth Blythe Allston, I was named 

[75] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 



Elizabeth Waties Allston; not nearly so pretty a 
name, but it really made me the child of romance, 
I think. It was a beautiful thought and would 
have greatly pleased Aunt Blythe if she had 
known. 

All of this has taken me from that first summer 
of my mother's married Hfe on the seashore. It 
was a very happy one, the long mornings spent in 
sewing and talking with one who knew people and 
life, which my mother did not at all; and, above 
all, who knew this very peculiar life, surrounded 
by hundreds of a different race, with absolutely 
different characteristics and ideas. Mamma told 
me that once she had said in a despairing voice to 
her: 

" But, auntie, are there no honest negroes ? In 
your experience, have you found none honest?" 

*' My dear, I have found none honest, but I have 
found many, many trustworthy; and, Adele, when 
you think of it, that really is a higher quality. It 
is like bravery and courage; bravery is the nat- 
ural, physical almost, absence of fear; courage is 
the spiritual quality which makes a man encoun- 
ter danger confidently in spite of inward fear. 
And so honesty is a natural endowment, but trust- 
worthiness is the quality of loyalty, of fidelity 

[76] 



MOVE TO CANAAN — AUNT BLYTHE 

which will make a man die rather than betray a 
trust; and that beautiful quahty I have often 
found. When found, you must give it full recog- 
nition and seem to trust absolutely; one trace of 
suspicion will kill it; but one may make a mis- 
take, and it is well, with every appearance of 
complete trust, to keep your mind alert and on 
the subject." 

My mother exclaimed: "Oh, my dear auntie, I 
do not see how I can live my whole life amid these 
people ! I don't see how you have done it and 
kept your beautiful poise and serenity ! To be 
always among people whom I do not understand 
and whom I must guide and teach and lead on 
like children! It frightens me!" 

Aunt Blythe laid her hand on my mother's hand 
and said: "Adele, it is a life of self-repression and 
effort, but it is far from being a degrading life, as 
you have once said to me. It is a very noble life, 
if a woman does her full duty in it. It is the life 
of a missionary, really; one must teach, train, up- 
lift, encourage — always encourage, even in re- 
proof. I grant you it is a Hfe of effort; but, my 
child, it is our life : the life of those who have the 
great responsibility of owning human beings. We 
are responsible before our Maker for not only their 
I 77] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

bodies, but their souls; and never must we for one 
moment forget that. To be the wife of a rice- 
planter is no place for a pleasure-loving, indolent 
woman, but for an earnest, true-hearted woman 
it is a great opportunity, a great education. To 
train others one must first train oneself; it requires 
method, power of organization, grasp of detail, 
perception of character, power of speech; above 
all, endless self-control. That is why I pleaded 
with my dear sister until she consented to send 
Robert to West Point instead of to college. 
Robert was to be a manager and owner of large 
estates and many negroes. He was a high- 
spirited, high-tempered boy, brought up princi- 
pally by women. The discipline of four years at 
West Point would teach him first of all to obey, to 
yield promptly to authority; and no one can com- 
mand unless he has first learned to obey. It 
rejoices my heart to see Robert the strong, abso- 
lutely self-controlled, self-contained man he now 
is; for I mean to leave him my property and my 
negroes, to whom I have devoted much care, and 
who are now far above the average in every way, 
and I know he will continue my work; and, from 
what I see of you, my child, I believe you will 
help him." 

My mother told me that this talk with Aunt 
[78] 



MOVE TO CANAAN — AUNT BLYTHE 

Blythe influenced her whole life. It altered com- 
pletely her point of view. It enabled her to see 
a light on the path ahead of her, where all had 
been dark and stormy before; the life which had 
looked to her unbearable, and to her mind almost 
degrading. Aunt Blythe urged her daily to or- 
ganize her household so that she would have less 
physical work herself, and that part should be 
delegated to the servants, who might not at first do 
it well, but who could be taught and trained to 
do it regularly and in the end well. With Aunt 
Blythe's help she arranged a programme of duties 
for each servant, and Aunt Blythe's trained and 
very superior maid was able to assist greatly in 
the training of mamma's willing but raw servants. 
The old lady was most regular in taking her 
daily drives and always insisted on my mother's 
going with her. It was a great amusement to her 
to see the preparations made. Aunt Blythe was 
big and heavy and always wore black satin slip- 
pers without heels. Mamma said she had never 
seen her take a step on mother earth except to 
and from the carriage, when she was always as- 
sisted. She wore an ample, plainly gathered 
black silk gown, with waist attached to skirt, cut 
rather low in the neck, and a white kerchief of 
fine white net for morning, and lace for dress, 
[79] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

crossed in front, and a white cap. We have her 
portrait by Sully in that dress. She always car- 
ried a large silk bag filled with useful things, and 
as they met darkies on the way. Aunt Blythe 
would throw out to each one, without stopping the 
carriage, a handkerchief or apron, a paper of nee- 
dles, or a paper of pins, or a spool of thread, or a 
card of buttons or hooks and eyes, or a spoon or 
fork — all things greatly prized, for in those days 
all these things were much scarcer than they are 
to-day, and there were no country shops as there 
are now, and, consequently, such small things 
were worth ten times as much as now to people, 
though they might not really cost as much as they 
now do. Sometimes it was a Httle package of 
tea or coffee or sugar which she had Minda, her 
maid, prepare and tie up securely for the purpose. 
Naturally, **Miss Betsey Ely" was looked upon 
as a great personage, and her path in her daily 
drives was apt to be crossed by many foot-passen- 
gers, who greeted her with profound courtesies, and 
apron skilfully tucked over the arm, so that it 
could be extended in time to receive anything. 



[80] 



CHAPTER VIII 

FIRST CHILD— PLANTATION LIFE 

THE next winter, in February, mamma's first 
child, a son, named Benjamin, after papa's 
father, was born. She was desperately 
ill, and her beautiful hair was cut as short as pos- 
sible. Papa had thought it wisest for her to ac- 
cede to her brother and his wife's urgent request 
that she should go to them in Charleston for the 
event; and it was most fortunate, for had she been 
taken ill at home, with a doctor far away, she 
probably would not have lived. As it was, her re- 
covery was slow, and it was some time before she 
could resume her normal life at home. Aunt May, 
her unmarried sister, went home with her when 
she returned, and stayed until she regained her 
usual health. Aunt May was the only plain sis- 
ter, for although she had beautiful complexion, 
brown hair, and fine figure, her face was not pretty, 
— but she made up in wit what she lacked in 
beauty. She was the wittiest, most amusing com- 
panion, and had great domestic gifts as house- 
keeper. Aunt May's coffee. Aunt May's rolls and 
bread, in short, every article on her table was 
[8i] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

superior, and, of course, this was a great comfort 
to mamma. There was only one drawback. Aunt 
May had no patience with incompetence, and the 
servants were a terrible trial to her, and mamma 
had to hear hourly of their shortcomings, which 
she knew only too well already, and to sympathize 
with Aunt May over them. 

My mother spent a very anxious time in the 
first year of her eldest child's Hfe. He was very 
delicate, and mamma knew nothing about babies. 
The plantation nurses seemed to her very igno- 
rant, and she was afraid to trust the baby to them. 
However, any one who has read Doctor Sims's 
very interesting account of his early practice, 
especially among babies, well knows that these 
nurses, many of them, had learned through the 
constant care of babies how to manage them in a 
way surprising to one whose knowledge is alto- 
gether theoretic and scientific. Anyway, my 
brother grew and strengthened before the next 
baby came two years afterward. Robert was a 
very beautiful, strong child, and from the first gave 
no anxiety or trouble, only delight to mamma; 
and the little boys were always taken for twins, 
the elder being small for his age and the younger 
large. 

[82] 



FIRST CHILD — PLANTATION LIFE 



Two years passed, and another baby came. 
This was the first little girl, and papa wished to 
name her for his mother, Charlotte Ann, and 
mamma asked that part of Aunt Blythe's name 
be added — her name was Elizabeth Frances. She 
had died the winter before, and mamma missed her 
dreadfully. So the little girl was called Charlotte 
Frances; and, in the household with its number of 
servants, you could always distinguish those de- 
voted to my mother, who always spoke of " Miss 
Fanny," and those devoted to my father, who 
spoke of "Miss Cha'lot." But I never knew this 
from mamma, and do not know if it were so. 
Hearing of her only from mamma, I only knew 
of her as Fanny, my perfectly beautiful little 
sister. 

Of these years I know very little, nothing, in- 
deed, except that my parents went the summer 
following to Newport and New York, and visited 
papa's uncle, the great painter, Washington All- 
ston, in Boston. When Mr. Flagg was looking 
over the great man's letters preparatory to pub- 
lishing his life and letters, he found one from 
Washington Allston to his mother, speaking of 
this visit and of my mother's beauty and charm; 
and Mr. Flagg very kindly sent this letter to my 
[83] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

mother, who gave it to me, and there is quite a 
contest among my nieces and nephews as to who 
will be the lucky one to whom I leave it. Mamma 
was greatly impressed by the ethereal beauty of 
the artist. She had at this time as nurse for the 
baby a woman from the State of New York, who 
took the little one in to see and be seen by her 
great-uncle. When she came out of the studio 
she said to mamma: "Surely, your uncle has the 
face of an angel, ma'am." 

Three years passed, mamma very happy with 
her little family of interesting children, two of them 
so beautiful that wherever they went the nurse 
was stopped on the street by those who remarked 
on the wonderful beauty of Robert and Fanny. 
Poor, dear little Ben was neither beautiful nor 
strong, but he had a good mind and powerful will. 
Mamma often went to Charleston to visit her 
brother and sisters there, for by this time the 
youngest sister, Harriet, was also married to a 
young and very clever lawyer, Henry Deas Lesesne, 
who was in the law office of James L. Petigru, and 
she had her charming home in Charleston; so there 
were three homes to be visited there. Aunt Louise 
had relented in her attitude to my father and was 
always hospitably anxious to entertain the little 
[84] 



FIRST CHILD — PLANTATION LIFE 

family. Aunt Blythe had left her fortune to my 
father and the two boys, still babies though they 
were, to the surprise and indignation of many. 
So these were happy prosperous years. 

Papa found the house at Chicora too small for 
the growing family, and began the planning of a 
new one, to which the two very large down-stairs 
rooms of the old one should be attached as an L. 
As the spring came on, a new baby was expected, 
and mamma hoped it would be a little girl, to 
name after her mother. As my mother dreaded the 
move to the sea, which involved so much trouble- 
some packing, my father built a summer house, 
what would now be called a bungalow, for it had 
large, airy rooms, but all on one floor, at a pine- 
land about eight miles north of the plantation on 
the same side of the Pedee, where he had a large 
tract of land, and where the cattle went always 
in summer. It was called "The Meadows." 
Mamma was very pleased to be so near the plan- 
tation, for she could drive down in the afternoons 
and see after her flower-garden, which was beauti- 
ful and her delight. She gathered great baskets 
of roses and brought them back. The Meadows 
was very prettily situated in a savannah, which 
was a natural garden of wild flowers — great, 

[85] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

brilliant tiger-lilies, white and yellow orchis, the 
pink deer-grass, with its sweet leaf, pink saltatia, 
as well as white, and ferns everywhere. 

Here, in this isolated new summer home, miles 
away from any neighbor, mamma was taken ill 
about two months before the time set for the 
baby's coming. Hastily the doctor was sum- 
moned, a very young man, still unmarried, but 
one who showed early his skill and proficiency as 
a family doctor; then the monthly nurse, as it 
was then called, Mary Holland, was found and 
brought. Fortunately, she had been employed in 
Georgetown and had not yet returned to Charles- 
ton, where she lived, and was in great demand by 
the doctors of best standing. I remember her as 
an old woman, but still tall and stately in figure, 
and with great dignity and poise. She was about 
the color of an Indian. It was a mercy she could 
be got, for my mother was desperately ill; but the 
little girl so hoped for was born, and my mother 
did not die. When she became strong enough to 
speak, and my father was with her, she said: "I 
want to see little Louise." 

My father answered: "I will bring little Adele 
to you myself." 

She exclaimed: "Oh, Mr. Allston, I do not 
[86] 



FIRST CHILD — PLANTATION LIFE 

want the baby named after me ! I must name 
her for my dear mother." 

But he answered: "I wish her to bear the name 
of my beloved wife." 

She said nothing, but the tears which all of her 
suffering had not brought, now rolled down her 
cheeks. In a little while papa returned with the 
small bundle of flannel wrappings and most skil- 
fully and tenderly unfolded them until the baby 
was visible. 

Mamma looked at her, and then with something 
of her wonted spirit said: "You may call her 
Adele if you like ! Poor little soul, she cannot 
live! Take her away!" 

I must think that this exhibition of almost cruel 
obstinacy on my father's part was due to the fact 
that the doctor had told him mamma could not 
possibly recover, and he thought it the only 
chance to have a little girl to name after her. 

Wonderful tales were told of the smallness of 
the little Adele. "She was put into a quart cup 
with ease and comfort to her." After mamma was 
well enough to hold her and play with her, she 
passed her wedding-ring over her hand and on her 
arm as a bracelet ! But the little Adele had a grit 
and grip on life which astounded every one, and 
[87] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

she grew to womanhood, a beautiful creature in 
face, form, and spirit. She married and had seven 
children, and never lost one from illness. They 
grew up healthy and strong. The tiny Adele was 
born August i6, 1840, in the very middle of a very 
hot summer. Of course, my mother's return to 
health was slow and tedious. 

One can cast one's mind back to that date, when 
ice was so great a luxury that it was only to be 
had in the North, where it was cut and put up in 
the winter. The Meadows was twenty miles from 
the nearest town and post-office, Georgetown, and 
everything had to be brought up by the planta- 
tion wagons and team. But milk and butter and 
cream were abundant, also poultry and eggs; and 
the Pedee furnished most delicious fish — bream 
and Virginia perch and trout. There were figs in 
abundance and also peaches, but the latter were 
small and a good deal troubled with cuculio. 
They were, however, very good stewed, and my 
mother made quantities of delicious preserves 
from them. 

Around the house at Chicora grew luxuriant 
orangetrees, only the bitter-sweet; but these 
oranges make the nicest marmalade, so mamma 
put up quantities of that for winter use. Her vege- 

[88 1 



FIRST CHILD — PLANTATION LIFE 

table-garden was always full of delicious things — 
cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplant, and okra; and, 
as my father killed beef and mutton every week 
for use on the plantation, she had the very best 
soups and steaks; and there were always wild 
ducks to be had. Also, after August i, there was 
venison in the house, for my father was devoted 
to deer-hunting. At the time the negroes under- 
stood preserving the venison in the hottest weather 
by exposing it to the broiling sun. I do not know 
what else they did, for it is now a lost art; but it 
was called "jerked venison" and was a delicious 
breakfast dish, when shaved very thin and broiled. 
They also preserved fish in the same way — called 
"corned fish" — it was a great breakfast dish 
broiled. Besides all this, about the end of August 
the rice-birds began to swarm over the rice, suck- 
ing out all the grain when in the milk stage. This 
necessitated the putting out of bird-minders in 
great numbers, who shot the little birds as they 
rose in clouds from the rice at the least noise. 
These rice-birds are the most delicious morsels; 
smaller than any other bird that is used for food, 
I think, so that a man with a good appetite can 
eat a dozen, and I, myself, have eaten six. When 
they go out at the end of harvest, another delicious 
[89] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

little bird comes in, called locally a coot, but really 
the rail or soarer of Maryland. All these things 
made living easy and abundant, for they came in 
great quantities. 

Mamma spoke with great pleasure of this part of 
her life when she could thoroughly enjoy her little 
family, sorrow not yet having clouded her horizon. 
When the little Adele was two years old came a 
little sister, strong, healthy, and beautiful, to bear 
the name of the beloved little French mother, 
Louise Gibert — then her cup of happiness was 
full. She had come to love the plantation life, 
with its duties and its power to help the sick, to 
have the girls taught to sew and cut out simple 
garments, to supply proper and plentiful nourish- 
ment for the hospital — all this came to be a 
joy to her. There was on the plantation, be- 
sides the hospital or "sick-house," a "children's 
house," where all the mothers who were going 
out to work brought their children to be cared for 
during the day. The nursing babies, who were 
always taken care of by a child of ten or eleven, 
were carried to the mothers at regular intervals to 
be nursed. The head nurse, old Maum Phibby 
(Phoebe), was a great personage, and an admin- 
istrator, having two under her, a nurse and a 
cook. Maum Phibby trained the children big 

[90] 




MRS. BENJAMIN ALLSTON (NEE CHARLOTTE ANNE ALLSTON) 

MOTHER OF R. F. W. ALLSTON. 

Miniature by Eraser. 



FIRST CHILD — PLANTATION LIFE 

enough to learn, teaching them to run up a seam 
and hem, in the way of sewing, and to knit first 
squares for wash-cloths, and then stockings, and 
then to spin. When the war came there was not 
a grown woman on the plantation who could not 
knit stockings or spin yarn. Weaving was only 
taught to certain young women who showed abil- 
ity and some mechanical skill. 

Mamma walked out often to the sick-house to 
see the patients and taste the soup and other 
nourishment, and then on to the "chillun's 
house" to see how their food was prepared, and 
whether they were all kept clean and healthy. 
This she did all her life, and I remember the joy 
of being allowed to go with her and of seeing the 
children all lined up in rows, their black skins 
shining, as clean black skins do, in a deHghtful 
way, their white teeth gleaming as they dropped 
their courtesies as mamma passed, each one holding 
in her hand some piece of work to exhibit. They 
were a healthy, happy lot and very clean, as it 
was an important part of Maum Phibby's duties 
to report the mothers who were negligent of 
"clean linen." * There was in the children's 

* It is one of the peculiarities of the darkies of the past that they 
always spoke of that innermost garment which Shakespeare calls 
"a shift" as "their linen," even if it was made of coarse, unbleached 
homespun. 

[91] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

house, as well as the sick-house, a tin tub, that in 
the hospital big enough for the tallest man to lie 
straight in, and that at the children's house 
smaller; and any number of huge black kettles, 
so that hot water in great quantities could be got 
very quickly on the open fires. The children 
were bathed and scrubbed once a week by Maum 
Phibby, and woe to the mother whose child was 
not found to have been kept clean in the mean- 
time. I have two of those immense coffin-shaped 
tubs now, perfectly good and strong, and I had one 
freshly painted and used it until two years ago, 
when I was able to put in a modern bathtub. At 
the end of the war, when furniture and every port- 
able thing was carried off by the darkies, the bath- 
tubs from the sick-house were the one thing not 
taken. They were conspicuously in poor repute, 
one thing that nobody wanted ! The coffin-shaped 
tub has a great recommendation, as taking less 
than half the water to cover a person entirely than 
the modern tub, and a very hot bath could be 
quickly given. 

Mamma every Sunday afternoon had all the 
children big enough to come assembled in the little 
church in the avenue, and taught them what she 
could of the great mercy of God and what he 

[92] 



FIRST CHILD — PLANTATION LIFE 

expected of his children. It was always spoken 
of as "katekism," and was the event of the week 
to the children — their best clothes, their cleanest 
faces, and oh, such smiling faces greeted mamma 
when she arrived at the church ! After the lesson 
a big cake was brought in a wheelbarrow by one 
of the house-boys, convoyed by Maum Mary, 
who cut it with much ceremony, and each child 
went up to the barrow, dropped a courtesy and 
received a slice, then passed to my mother with 
another courtesy, filed out and scampered happily 
home as soon as safe from Maum Mary's paralyz- 
ing eye. 

All her life mamma kept this up, and in later 
years we children were allowed to go on condition 
that we should sit still and listen to the catechism, 
and ask for no cake until every child had had his 
share. Then we were allowed a few scraps, which 
tasted nicer than any other cake. 



[93] 



CHAPTER IX 
FIRST GRIEVING 

ONE spring, when the little Louise was 
about three, I think, Adele five, Fanny 
seven, Robert nine, Ben eleven, a neigh- 
bor wrote from Charleston to mamma, asking if she 
would receive her and her two children for a night. 
The children had been ill with scarlet fever, but 
were well again, and pronounced by the doctor fit 
to travel; but, in order to reach their home on 
Sandy Island in one day they would have to be 
out late In the evening; and she feared the night 
air, so took the liberty of begging mamma to receive 
them for the night. My mother wrote she would 
be happy to do so, and they came, spent the night, 
went on their way the next day. My mother had 
had no fear and the children played together. 
She felt as the doctor had pronounced them fit to 
travel it was perfectly safe. A few days after the 
visit Robert was playing, when he suddenly 
dropped his playthings and put his head in 
mamma's lap, saying he felt sick. It was the 
dread disease. His illness was terrible from the 
first, but very short. He died. Then Fanny took 

[94] 



FIRST GRIEVING 



it and followed rapidly, though Robert had been 
isolated from the moment he was taken. My 
poor mother was prostrated with her passionate 
grief. Every precaution then known was taken 
in the way of fumigation and burning up bedding 
and clothing, and the plague was stayed. 

A great longing to visit the home of her child- 
hood seized my mother, and my father felt it was 
a great thing that she should have the desire to 
go, as he really feared for her mind and health. 
So when all possible danger of contagion was con- 
sidered over, he took her and the three children 
who were left up to Abbeville to the farm called 
Badwell, where she was born, and where her be- 
loved mother lay in the family burying-ground 
with the pasteur of the desert, Jean Louis Gibert, 
her father. My father left them there and re- 
turned to his work. In a few days the beautiful 
little Louise was taken ill and died, and was laid 
by her grandmother in the God's acre ! I cannot 
bear to think of my mother's suffering at this time. 
The tragedy of it ! The child named at last for 
her mother, on this much-longed-for visit to her 
mother's home. Now her three beautiful, strong 
children were gone, leaving only the delicate Ben 
and the delicate and tiny seven-months' child, 
[95] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

Adele. It seems like the crushing out of some 
dainty, happy creature, a beautiful, full, happy life 
drained of its joy, leaving only stern, exacting 
duty! 

I know my dear father suffered terribly at this 
time, too, but he never spoke to me of it. He 
never found it possible to put his deeper feelings 
into words. I think he and my mother were a 
great comfort to each other in their grief, and I 
think it was this summer that my father had the 
desperate illness of which my mother has told me, 
and I believe it was his return from the jaws of 
death which made her first feel life held a future 
for her. 

They were in the same isolated, remote summer 
house, The Meadows. Papa came home from his 
harvest work on the plantation much exhausted, 
went at once to bed, and when mamma followed 
him at midnight she knew he was desperately ill — 
a burning, consuming fever, and his rapid whispered 
speech showed him deUrious. She called the ser- 
vants, wrote a note to Doctor Sparkman, asking 
him to come at once, telling him how suddenly 
papa had been taken, put a man on horseback and 
sent him off in the night, telling him to go from 
place to place until he found the doctor. Then 

[96] 



FIRST GRIEVING 



she proceeded to do what she could for the patient 
to reduce the awful fever. Cloths wrung out in 
water fresh from the spring on head and face and 
hands was all she could do to cool it, as there was 
no ice. Then she had a tub of hot water brought 
and with the help of Hynes, the house-servant, 
put his feet to the knees in that, covering him 
with blankets to produce steam. Mercifully this 
quieted him and the jabbering ceased and he slept. 
Daylight came, no doctor, no sound came to her 
Ustening ear of horse-hoofs. The heavy sleep as 
of one drugged lasted until she was frightened, 
but she feared to wake him. She looked after the 
children, having Hynes, who was very faithful 
and intelligent, to sit by papa and fan him. She 
gave the children their breakfast and tried to eat, 
herself, for she knew she would need all her 
strength. Dinner-time came, evening, night. Oh, 
the long hours, how they dragged ! She thought 
of her desperate, passionate grief for her children, 
feeling she could not bear it. Had God heard 
her rebellious murmurings, and was he going to 
show her now how blessed she had then been, 
having her husband left to her ! How unutter- 
ably worse this grief would be ! How hopeless, 
indeed, would life be without him ! 

[97] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

And so the hours wore on, but she was not idle; 
she thought of everybody and did everything for 
the comfort of the house. Just at midnight the 
dogs began to bark. She went on the piazza and 
heard wheels approaching. She had kept the 
dinner-table laid with flowers and silver and 
candles, all bright and cheery. As soon as she 
heard wheels she ordered the servants to bring in 
dinner, and when the doctor entered and said, 
"How is Colonel Allston .''" she said, "Doctor, sit 
down and dine first, and then I will take you in 
to see him." He sat down, and she went to the 
sick-room, where things were unchanged, the same 
drugged sleep and heavy breathing. As soon as 
the doctor had finished, he came and Hstened to 
her accurate account of all the symptoms. Then 
the fight began. I do not know what he gave or 
what he did, but he remained doing all that his 
skill and science suggested, for thirty-six hours, 
and then he felt for the first time that there was 
hope, and left to see after his other patients. He 
told my mother that he had been with a desper- 
ately ill patient on Santee, thirty miles south of 
his home, for twenty-four hours; when he returned 
to his home he found mamma's note and the ser- 
vant, and without going into the house, though 

[98] 



FIRST GRIEVING 



he was famished for food after a thirty-mile drive, 
he had had a fresh horse put in and came right on. 
Then he said: "Oh, Mrs. Allston, if every one 
thought of the doctor as you do, the Hfe of a coun- 
try doctor would be a different thing, and fewer 
of them would become dependent on stimulants. 
I was exhausted, but expected to see and pre- 
scribe for the patient before having food. When 
I saw that delicious dinner of roast duck and vege- 
tables I was completely surprised, but I blessed 
you and felt how much clearer my brain, how 
much better my condition to prescribe for the 
patient, and how much better chance it gave him 
for life, though, I confess, when I first saw Colonel 
Allston I did not feel there was any chance of sav- 
ing him." I tell all this just as my mother told 
it to me. It shows what a woman she was. 
My father recovered slowly, and it was the last 
summer they spent at The Meadows, the distance 
from all help in illness being too great. 

The next May, 1845, they again moved to Ca- 
naan Seashore, where my mother had spent her 
first summer of married Hfe. They went early in 
May and I was born on the 29th of that month. 
Naturally, I suppose, after all the sorrow and anx- 
iety mamma had had, I was a miserably delicate, 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

nervous baby, and I have heard mamma say that 
for months they were afraid to take me out of the 
house at all. At the end of that time the house 
which papa was building on Pawley's Island, just 
across the marsh and creek from Canaan, was fin- 
ished, and they determined to move the household 
over to the island for the rest of the summer. 
That was my first outing, and the times I was 
taken out of the room afterward were few and 
far between, for it seems after going out I never 
closed my eyes at all that night. I was a poor 
sleeper at any time, but after going out I was no 
sleeper at all. The floor of my dear mother's 
room on the beach is seamed all over by the marks 
of the rocking-chair in which I was eternally 
rocked ! They had a hard struggle to keep me 
alive. Both mamma and papa wanted me named 
for the dear old aunt who had been such a blessing 
to everybody, so I was named Elizabeth Waties, 
mamma with tender sympathy giving me the name 
she would have borne had her dream of love ma- 
terialized. I seemed to be marked for sadness, 
with deep lines under my eyes, as though I had 
already wept much, which I certainly had, only 
with a baby it is not weeping, but crying, with the 
accompaniment of much noise. 
I 100 ] 



FIRST GRIEVING 



The winter I was two years old, one Sunday 
mamma had gone with papa in a boat to All Saints' 
Church, seven miles away on the Waccamaw. 
She looked out of the window as she listened to 
dear, saintly Mr. Glennie's sermon, and across 
her vision passed a young man walking in the 
churchyard, holding by the hand little Ben, who 
had been allowed to go out when the sermon be- 
gan. She was much excited, because she could 
not imagine what stranger could possibly be there. 
As he passed a second time she recognized her be- 
loved brother Charles, whom she had not seen for 
several years. One can understand that the rest 
of Mr. Glennie's excellent discourse was lost to 
her, and she could scarcely wait for the blessing, 
to rush out and meet the stranger. 

He was in the army, having graduated from 
West Point in 1829. He told her he was on his 
way to Florida, and had managed to arrange to 
spend one day with her, but it could only be one. 
So when he reached the plantation and found she 
had gone by water to church so far away, he or- 
dered a boat, and followed her, so as to lose noth- 
ing of his time with her. This visit was the great- 
est joy to my mother. He was her youngest 
brother and her special favorite. She was dis- 

[lOl] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

tressed when he told her where he was going and 
why. The U. S. post at Tampa, Florida, had 
proved a very deadly one. One officer after an- 
other who had been sent there in command had 
contracted the terrible malarial fever of the coun- 
try and died soon after getting there. His friend 
Ramsay had been ordered there, and he found 
him in despair one day, having just received his 
orders. He said he had a wife and a mother, both 
dependent on him, and it was awful to him to be 
going to certain death when he thought of them 
and what would become of them. Uncle Charles 
said at once: "Ramsay, I will take your place; if 
I apply for the exchange, I can get it, and I have 
no one dependent upon me, so I have the right 
to do it." The exchange had been effected and 
Uncle Charles was on his way to take the place 
which West Point for years sang of in their class 
song, "Benny Havens, Oh!" as "Tampa's deadly 
shore." Uncle Charles left early the next morn- 
ing. By the time my next little brother came, a 
boy born the 31st of the next July, Uncle Charles 
had accompHshed his sacrifice and fallen a victim 
to the fever, so the baby was named Charles Peti- 
gru; and everybody always loved him more than 
any of the other children. He was so beautiful 
[ 102] 



FIRST GRIEVING 



and so sweet and good that we all expected him 
to die, but he didn't, but grew up to be a man 
and always a blessing to all around him. 

Mamma's grief at her brother's death was great, 
but she had learned to suffer without rebellion, 
and as some wise one has written, "there is great 
peace and strength in an accepted sorrow." She 
always felt very proud of the heroism and self- 
sacrifice of Uncle Charles's death. "No greater 
love is there than that a man give his life for his 
friend"; that is not quoted exactly, but it sets a 
man very high. Now we are living in such a 
heroic time, with men giving their lives on the 
battle-field to save one another, every hour, that 
perhaps it does not seem as grand a thing. But 
when one thinks of a very young, handsome, pop- 
ular man dehberately giving up a choice army 
post to take one which meant certain, unheroic, 
painful, and obscure death, it seems to me very, 
very heroic and beautiful. After Uncle Charles's 
death — I think he was the seventh commanding 
officer of the Tampa post who died in quick suc- 
cession — the post was given up. Wonderful to 
say, now since the science of stamping out disease 
has reached such a height, Tampa is a health re- 
sort ! and one wonders what was the cause of that 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

death-dealing miasma which made the place so 
fatal. On our way to the Chicago Exposition, 
having to be some hours in Atlanta, we visited 
the military station there, and I met a Captain 
Ramsay, who told me he was the son of the officer 
whose life had been saved by my Uncle Charles 
Petigru's generous heroism, and seemed quite ex- 
cited to meet two nieces and three great-nieces of 
the heroic young lieutenant to whom his family 
owed so much. 



[ 104] 



PART III 
MYSELF 



H 



CHAPTER X 

BABY WOES 

AVING brought things up to this point 
by telling what I heard from my dear 
mother, who had a wonderful memory, 
as well as a most dramatic power of speech, I must 
try now to put down what I remember myself. 
Here and there a scene stands out, just a medal- 
lion, as it were, a bas-relief from the far past, with 
everything as distinct and clear-cut as possible. 

The very first is a very mortifying one to re- 
count; but, if I am to put down all I remember, 
as I have been urged to do, I must be frank and 
truthful, or it will have no value. This is the old 
story of our first Mother Eve in that beautiful 
garden of Eden, temptation, fall, punishment. 
My mother was ill on Pawley's Island, the beach. 
I must have been about three. The wife of the 
family doctor (who was, when we were on the 
beach, Doctor Hasel) had sent a plate of very 
beautiful peaches to my mother, and they had 
been put on the Sheraton sideboard in the dining- 
room. They were so big that one could rest on 
a tumbler without going in, quite different from 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

the ordinary peaches we had; indeed, I had never 
seen such peaches, as big as an orange they were 
and with bright-red cheeks. I gazed and gazed, 
walking through the room several times slowly. 
My father was sitting in the corner of the room 
at his desk, writing, with his back turned, and 
finally Satan prevailed and I tipped in softly with 
my little bare feet, and tried to reach the peaches; 
failing, I got a chair and put it alongside the side- 
board, climbed up, got the top peach and quickly 
and quietly made my way into the thick shrub- 
bery outside, and ate my beautiful and delicious 
capture with great delight. I was somewhat 
sticky and messy, but fortune favored me and I 
made my way into the nursery without meeting 
any one, washed my hands and face to the best of 
my ability, and then went in the corner of the 
piazza where my dolls were, and felt serenely 
happy. When I came out with my doll for a 
walk I found quite an excitement. First May, 
the Irish nurse who was head of the nursery, met 
me and asked if I had taken one of the beautiful 
peaches. Quite calmly I answered "No." Then 
every one I met told of the rape of the peach and 
asked if I knew anything about it. I always 
managed to answer in the same calm negative, 
[io8] 



BABY WOES 



though by this time I was far from feeling calm 
within. Finally May went to my father with 
many lamentations, and announced that one of 
the servants had taken one of the beautiful peaches 
from the sideboard. Papa said: "Send Miss Bes- 
sie to me." So I came and papa repeated the 
terrible question, as it had now come to be, and I 
answered with the same "No," but very faint was 
it this time, for I felt it was no use, as papa seemed 
to me to have all the qualities of the Deity, om- 
niscience being one. He said with a terribly 
pained voice: 

"My little daughter, why tell a lie? I was 
writing here and heard your little feet coming and 
going through the room, but thought of no possi- 
ble harm until this outcry about the missing peach 
was brought to me, and then I turned and saw the 
chair placed by the sideboard, and knew what the 
little feet had been busy about, and sent for my 
little girl, feeling sure she would tell me what she 
had done. It was a shock to me to hear that 
*No,' and a real grief. That my little daughter, 
named after my blessed Aunt Blythe, who was 
the soul of honor, should have taken one of the 
beautiful peaches sent to her mother who is ill, 
without asking for it, is bad enough; but that 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

that same little daughter should tell a lie about it 
is a great distress. But most of all is the fact 
that she told a lie which would leave the guilt to 
fall upon an innocent person ! That is a terrible 
thing to have done, and I must punish you, so 
that you may never fall so low again. Go into 
the little room and wait until I come." 

I went. The little room was a shed-room on 
the northeast corner of the piazza, which was 
kept always ready for any stray man guest who 
might arrive unexpectedly. The little mahogany 
bed was always made up with fresh sheets and 
white coverlet and looked very inviting. I sat in 
the rocking-chair and rocked, trying to make be- 
lieve to myself that I did not care and was not 
frightened. After a while my father came and 
gave me a severe switching. When he had fin- 
ished he kissed me, put me on the bed, and threw 
a light linen coverlet over me, and I went to sleep. 
I slept a long time, for when I woke up it was 
nearly dark, and I felt like an angel in heaven — 
so happy and peaceful and, above all, filled with 
a kind of adoration for my father. It is strange 
what a realization of right and wrong that gave 
me, baby though I was. I have never ceased to 
feel grateful to papa for the severity of that pun- 
[no] 



BABY WOES 



ishment. It had to be remembered, and it meant 
the holding aloft of honesty and truth, and the 
trampling in the dust of dishonesty and false- 
hood. No child is too young to have these basic 
principles taught them. 

The next silhouette which stands out vividly is 
different. We had had the delight of a little sis- 
ter added to our nursery. She was born in De- 
cember, the only winter baby. All the rest of us 
were born in summer. I only remember the wild 
excitement in the nursery when May came in the 
early morning and announced, "You have a little 
sister," and how we scrambled out of bed and 
into our clothes hastily, hoping to see her. Of 
course, we did not have that joy for some days. 

Then a long blank, only two years, really. It 
was summer. We were on Pawley's Island, and 
my father and mother had gone to New York, 
leaving us at home with the governess and nurse. 
Letters came saying that my mother was very ill, 
and instead of the carriage being ordered to meet 
her at the boat, directions came for a mattress to 
be placed in the wagon, and that was to meet her 
at Waverly. The afternoon came and we were 
so wild with expectation and excitement that the 
governess and nurse thought best to take us 
[III] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

across the causeway into the woods, with the bait 
held out of meeting mamma as she came. 

The walk in the woods was always a treat, so 
we went joyfully — Delia, who was twelve, and 
Charley, the baby, still in her nurse's arms most 
of the time, and myself. I remember principally 
in this walk a spider, the biggest I ever saw until 
I was an old woman. I was hanging on an oak 
limb, quite near to the ground. It was rotten, 
and it broke and I fell to the earth, and with me 
fell out of the hollow limb a spider as big as a 
dollar. I was terribly frightened and screamed 
for a long time. 

Soon after I was quieted we heard the rumble 
of wheels, and the wagon came in sight, going 
very slowly. As it came nearer we rushed for- 
ward to meet it, but papa, who rode on horse- 
back beside it, held up his finger in warning, and 
then placed it on his lips, so we remained quite 
still until the wagon, in which we could see noth- 
ing, passed. Papa stopped behind, got down 
from his horse and kissed us all, putting Charley 
upon the horse, while he walked beside. He told 
us that mamma was very ill, and we must be very 
good and make no noise, but keep the house very 
quiet. Delia asked if we could see her and just 

[112] 



BABY WOES 



kiss her, but he said no; we must be content to 
know she had got safely home, and thank God for 
that, but we would not be able to see her until she 
was better. Then he mounted and rode on and 
caught up with the wagon. When the little pro- 
cession of disappointed children reached the house 
my mother had been carried into her own room 
and put to bed. A nurse had arrived in the 
buggy and took charge of her room. The gov- 
erness and May were told to keep us entirely in 
the western part of the house, where we could 
not be heard unless we made some outrageous 
noise. 

This dear old house consisted of two houses, 
each with two immense rooms down-stairs with 
very high ceilings and many windows and doors, 
and two rooms above equally large, but only half 
stories. These two houses were placed at right 
angles; the front one, toward the beach, ran north 
and south, the other, toward the marsh, ran east 
and west. Both had wide piazzas around them, 
which made a large, cool, shady hall where they 
came together. Our nursery was in the north- 
east up-stairs room in the front house, and though 
it was over the dining-room and not over mamma's 
room, it was thought best to move us to the other 
[113] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

side of the house entirely. So we slept in the 
bedroom next to the day-nursery, where we took 
our meals, at the extreme west of the house. 

I cannot tell how long this stillness lasted, but 
it seems an age, as I look back. Then one day 
May came in and said mamma was better, and we 
had a new little brother, but we must still be very 
good and make no noise. I remember going very 
softly with my bare feet, holding Charley's hand, 
until we got to the piazza outside of mamma's room 
and waiting until we heard the baby cry. Then 
we knew the good news was true, and we crept 
back in delight to the playroom. Every day we 
made this trip, and for some days were rewarded 
by the delightful sound of the baby's voice; and 
then one day, though we sat a long time, there 
was no sound — all was still. And that day, after 
dinner, papa came in and told us the little brother 
had left us; God had taken him back to heaven. 

We went out for our afternoon walk very sol- 
emnly, and as we walked I held tightly to Hagar's 
hand and said how I wished I could just once 
have seen my little brother. Hagar, who was a 
negro girl about fifteen, Maum 'Ria's daughter, 
and was assistant in the nursery, and went out 
to walk with us, said: "If yu didn't bin so coward, 

[114] 



BABY WOES 



I cud 'a show yu de baby, but yuse too cry-baby 
en yu'Il tell en git me in trubble." I declared I 
would not cry and I would not tell, if only she 
would let me see the little brother. Then she 
told me that when she began to take water up 
into the rooms, I must sit on the stairs and wait 
till she beckoned to me, and then very softly I 
must follow her up-stairs — all of which pro- 
gramme was carried out. And when we got into 
the room above my mother's, she put me out of 
the window on to the shed, and followed herself, 
and we walked stealthily on the shingles, so they 
would not creak, across the shed of the piazza to 
the window of the other house, where the company 
room was. The Venetian was closed, but Hagar 
put her hand between the slats and pulled the 
bolt and opened the shutter and put me in, follow- 
ing, herself, quickly. There, on the white-cur- 
tained dressing-table was a pretty white box of a 
strange shape to me. Hagar lifted the white mus- 
lin which covered it and held me up so that I 
could look in, and there was the most beautiful 
doll I had ever seen. I looked with delight. I 
can remember the little waxen face now. All 
would have gone well if I had not suddenly stooped 
and, before Hagar could stop me, kissed the lovely 
[IIS] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

thing. The awful cold of death sent such a shock 
through me that I opened my mouth to scream, 
but before any sound came Hagar clapped her 
hand over my mouth and hissed into my ear: 
"Ain't I say so! Yuse too cry-baby! I wish to 
de Lawd I neber bring yu ! Yu'll sho' tell en 
git me in trubble!" I stifled my screams and 
choked back my tears, Hagar shaming me and 
adjuring me to silence until I was quiet enough 
for us to attempt the perilous return trip. That 
night I could not sleep. I sobbed and sobbed and 
tossed on my little bed; the cold of that kiss 
seemed to freeze me all over. May went to papa, 
saying she feared I was going to be ill. He came 
to the nursery at once, talked to me and patted 
me and, when I only cried the more, he took me 
in his arms and walked up and down the nursery, 
singing to me. As the sobs still continued, he 
asked: "What ails my little daughter; has she 



any pam 



"No." 

"Has anything scared my little Bessie?" 

Violently I shook my head and tried my best to 

stop the sobs. I must keep my promise to Hagar. 

But it was far into the night before my father's 

sweet voice, singing hymn after hymn, soothed 

[u6] 



BABY WOES 



me and the sense of safety in his strong arms 
brought quiet, and I slept, and he laid me gently 
in my little trundle-bed. 

I remember nothing after that until one after- 
noon — I do not know if it was that summer or 
the next — we were going out for our usual walk 
on the beach, May with the little Louise in her 
arms, Charley trudging behind, I bringing up the 
rear. As we came round the piazza and were 
about to go down the front steps, papa, who was 
at his desk writing in the dining-room, called to 
May: "Mary, do not take the children farther 
than the Opening. We are going to have a storm 
and it will surely break when the tide changes." 
She came out and told us what papa had said. 

I flung myself down on the top step and said: 
"If I can't go any farther than the Opening, I 
won't go at all." 

May argued, she pleaded with me, she warned : 
"For the Lord's sake, child, don't let your father 
hear you! Come on then" — and she took my 
hand. 

But at this I lay flat back on the piazza and 
yelled and shrieked: "If I can't go beyond the 
Opening, I won't go at all." 

At last my father's voice came, calm and serene, 
[117] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

from the dining-room: "Never mind, Mary, leave 
her. Don't let the other children lose their walk. 
Go on to the beach." And she went. 

I screamed louder and louder and kicked until 
my poor heels were all bruised, but I didn't care. 
The devil of temper had me in its clutches, and I 
was crazed by it. Finally papa came out and 
took me into the little Prophet's Chamber, and 
gave me a severe whipping. As before, I went to 
sleep on the little white bed and woke up feeling 
like an angel in heaven, with adoration in my 
heart for the God who had conquered the evil 
spirit which had possessed me. I always feel 
grateful for that first conquest of the evil spirit 
within me. It has, no doubt, saved me much 
suffering; but this poor, intense, self-willed nature 
has all its long life dashed itself against stone 
walls, crying: "All — or nothing I" And God has 
tried gently to win me to yield to his will, his 
plans, and I have rebelled. And he had to take 
from me all that he had given me with a free 
hand, as though I were his favorite child. 

Never was a girl more blessed than I in her 

marriage, too happy to live, I often felt. Alas, 

my happiness so possessed me that it made me 

blind to the world outside. What cared I for the 

[ii8] 



BABY WOES 



world, or outer world, as long as my little paradise 
was untouched ? Alas, it had to go; and so one 
thing after another had to be taken before this 
poor piece of humanity was fit for the Master's 
use, able to yield and to help others to yield. And 
now I thank the great Father for all that crush- 
ing and sorrow, as I used as a little child to thank 
and adore my father for his punishments. There 
were only these two that I have told of. Never 
afterward did my father have to give me even a 
stern look. It was my joy and pride to win his 
approval, generally only a smile, but it meant 
more to me than the most lavish praise from any 
one else. 

My father thought riding a most healthful ex- 
ercise. My sister was a fearless horsewoman, and 
during the summers which we passed on this 
beautiful island, which had a splendid hard, broad 
beach three miles long, she spent all her after- 
noons on horseback. When she came home and 
dismounted, my father always put me on for a 
little ride. I was terribly afraid and it was a 
fearful joy to me. I nearly always cried when I 
was put on the horse, whose name was Typee; I 
would say: "Papa, I could canter all day, but it 
is the stopping I mind." I still remember with 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

terror the high, hard trot which Typee found 
necessary in stopping; he could not go from his 
easy canter to his nice, easy walk without intro- 
ducing this tremendous hard trot between, and 
when I was thrown up into the air I never knew 
whether I would drop back in the saddle or down 
on the sand. My brother Charley, two years 
younger, was a good and fearless rider; his horse 
Lady was swift and spirited, had a very easy gait 
and was not at all vicious, but nothing would in- 
duce me to mount her. 

One day, when my father returned from a visit 
to the upper part of the State, he called me and 
said: "My little Bessie, I have brought a pony to 
be all your own; his name is Rabbit and he is 
very gentle, so that now you need not be afraid 
to ride, and you can go with Adele instead of 
waiting until she comes home, for your ride." 

Of course I appeared overjoyed and thanked 
him with enthusiasm, but in my heart I was ter- 
ribly dismayed; go to ride with Delia, who went 
fast all the time ! No, indeed, I could not do 
that, but after Rabbit arrived, a little, dark-brown 
horse with kind eyes and slow ways, I was put on 
his back, weeping, every afternoon, and started 
off with Delia; but Typee went so fast that I 
[ 120] 



BABY WOES 



begged her to go on and leave Rabbit and me to 
our own devices, which she always did, so we 
ambled along comfortably, he having a very nice 
pace which suited me better than a canter or a 
gallop. Delia took her long, rapid ride and, re- 
turning, picked me up, so we came home demurely 
together. It was supposed that I was becoming a 
great horsewoman, and I really was getting over 
my fear and ceased to weep as I was mounted. 
Those quiet rambles along the beautiful, smooth 
beach, where nothing could hurt you, — with the 
great, beautiful sea, rolling in with its dashing 
waves just beside me, but limited by its great 
Creator — very soon became the greatest delight 
and joy to me. I loved to be alone with this 
wonderful companion, and would ride along about 
a mile and then turn and come slowly back, so 
that Delia could reach me before we got home. 
This conduct of my father's toward me showed his 
wonderful insight, and the thought he gave each 
individuality. Every one, my mother included, 
feared the effect on me of forcing me to mount and 
ride daily, when it was such pain to me, but he saw 
that if that nervous fear of everything was recog- 
nized and encouraged, the rest of me would never 
develop. Charley went to ride every morning with 

[121] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

a negro boy a few years older than himself, to see 
that he was not too rash. I doubt whether Brutus 
could be called a modifier, but he understood all 
about horses and was a good rider, teaching 
Charley a great deal, running races, and jumping 
ditches. 



[122] 



CHAPTER XI 

THE LITTLE SCHOOLHOUSE — BOARDING- 
SCHOOL 

THESE tragic memories all have as a back- 
ground our summer home on Pawley's 
Island, which we always spoke of as "the 
beach," as though this were the only beach in the 
world. My next memories are of the little school- 
house at Chicora and our two English governesses 
— Miss Wells, who was our first, I do not remem- 
ber distinctly, but Miss Ayme, who stayed with 
us until I went to boarding-school at nine, plays 
a great part in my pictures of the early days. 

My father had a two-roomed cottage about 
300 yards from the house, in a sunny spot in the 
park, near the river. It was a beautiful situation, 
and each room had a fireplace, where we kept up 
splendid oakwood fires, and to this charming 
schoolhouse we went at nine and remained until 
two, having our lunch sent down to us there, and 
only returning to the house when the bell sounded 
for preparation for dinner. In this way we avoid- 
ed the inevitable interruptions when the neigh- 
bors came to visit, for as they came from a dis- 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

tance of several miles always, it was quite a pro- 
longed affair, meaning tea and bread-and-butter, 
handed by Nelson on the big silver waiter, and 
wine, handed by the footman on a smaller silver 
waiter, and a great deal of talk. If we had been 
in the house when we were called for, it would 
have been impossible to refuse to send for us; but 
the fact that we were at the "schoolhouse," which 
could not be seen from the front door or piazza, 
resulted in our never being summoned. 

Miss Ayme was much before her day in many 
things, especially in her insistence on physical 
exercises, so in 1850 she introduced what is now 
essential in all schools, calisthenics. We exer- 
cised with poles and dumb-bells, and my sister, 
who stooped a little, was made to lie on her back 
a certain length of time every day on a wide 
plank, which was inclined at an angle, while Miss 
Ayme read aloud to her: the result was seen all 
her life in a beautiful figure, and erect, graceful 
bearing. I walked up and down for an allotted 
time each day, with a backboard, but as I had 
gone to boarding-school when the time came that 
I should have had the slanting-board treatment, 
I never have acquired the beautiful carriage of 
my sister. Miss Ayme also beHeved in telling 
[ 124] 



THE LITTLE SCHOOLHOUSE 

children many of the truths of nature, which at 
that time was considered very indiscreet if not im- 
moral. She was a very good teacher and, besides 
being a good Christian, was a lady. She had 
queer little ways and was a never-ending amuse- 
ment to our neighbors, who had not the apprecia- 
tion of the higher standards and the vision of my 
father and mother. Her odd dress and very Eng- 
lish speech struck them as her principal character- 
istics. Miss Ayme had been a governess in a 
family of the nobility in England. I have, I am 
sorry to say, forgotten the name, of which we 
used to get very tired, for she told many stories 
about the children, who seemed preternaturally 
good and were fed, to our minds, very poorly, 
principally on porridge, which sounded miserable 
to us. They were eager always for the top of 
Miss Ayme's boiled egg, which at that time in 
England was skilfully cut off with a knife, and 
she gave it to each one in turn, which they con- 
sidered most generous of her. 

When my sister was thirteen it was thought 
best by my parents to send her to boarding-school. 
There was one in Charleston, kept by Madame 
Togno, who took only a limited number, where 
French was the language spoken. This pleased 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

my mother especially, and as the course of study 
was said to be very good, my sister was sent 
to Charleston in the early autumn. This left 
me as the only pupil for Miss Ayme, Charley being 
only six, and as she was an expensive teacher my 
parents decided to do without her after the New 
Year. I remember how I missed my sister, how ter- 
ribly lonely I was without her, and how wild with 
delight I was when she returned in June, having 
enjoyed her school experiences very much and hav- 
ing improved in health as well as everything else, 
especially music, to which my father was devoted. 
So it was decided, as I was eager to go, that I 
should go too when she returned to Madame 
Togno's select French school. I was only nine, 
small for my age and very thin and nervous, and 
when one thinks of it now, it seems to have been 
an awful risk. But I feel quite sure it was most 
judicious; the companionship of girls of my own 
age was very good. The regulated life and study 
I had had at home were excellent, but I was alone, 
with no minds of my own age to measure myself 
with. At school I entered a class of fourteen lit- 
tle girls of my own age, day-scholars, some of 
them exceptionally well-grounded, bright children; 
and it did me a world of good to find I had to 
work hard if I wanted to keep up. 
[126] 



THE LITTLE SCHOOLHOUSE 

One lovely curly-haired, blue-eyed child that 
looked like an angel and a kitten combined, and 
who had been taught by her father like a boy, 
Sara White, kept me always at the greatest strain 
in the arithmetic, history, and dictation classes. 
Sara was not only the best girl in the class, but 
the prettiest and the tiniest. Her long, golden 
curls and her preternaturally clean white apron 
were my greatest envy. She was the dearest lit- 
tle case of enlarged conscience I have ever met. 
One day in class I saw her crying quietly, the big 
tears dropping onto her slate, and I whisperingly 
asked what was the matter. She told me between 
suppressed sniffs that her mother had forbidden 
her to go into the yard without her hat; she 
wanted to cross the yard to wash her slate, but 
madame had forbidden any girl to go into the 
closet where the hats were hung until recess ! 
What a plight ! I, being always daring, proceeded 
skilfully to 'go after a book across the room. I 
quickly entered the closet and got the hat, and 
Sara made her trip across the yard. Dear little 
strong, pure soul ! She has Hved a heroic life, at 
one time nearly supporting her family in New 
York by her china-painting. Still dainty and 
sweet, with her true blue eyes and golden, snow- 
touched curly hair, she is one of my dearest friends. 
[127] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

I learned French rapidly, as it was the language 
required of the boarding-pupils. I quickly picked 
up enough French words to pass me on and I in- 
vented many others, so that I appeared to be 
speaking French fluently to the older girls, who 
were painfully following rules and phrase-books. 
The ingenuity with which I added French-sound- 
ing terminals to English words so as to create the 
impression that I was speaking French was a 
great amusement to madame, and I became a 
great favorite with her. I was a tiny child, small 
and thin, with deep circles under my big eyes, 
with an uncannily alert mind, but shy and mor- 
bid by nature; very nervous and easily thrown 
into violent paroxysms of weeping by reproof. 
Madame was quick to find out that I responded 
to praise by redoubled effort, but wilted under 
disapproval and rebuke, and she kept me near 
her a great deal, and encouraged me to narrate in 
my own original French lingo all that I saw and 
heard, so that I soon got over my homesickness 
and learned quickly, but was in a fair way to be 
badly spoiled. The dining-room not being very 
large, madame had a table made in the shape of 
a horseshoe. She sat at the middle of the curve 
on the outside of the table, and I sat just opposite 
[128] 



THE LITTLE SCHOOLHOUSE 

her inside, and my mission was to amuse her as 
well as every one else at the table, so that I 
scarcely took time to eat enough to keep me going. 
The meals were always excellent, as madame 
prided herself on her table and looked carefully 
after the selection of food and the cooking. 

There were about twenty boarding-pupils, most 
of them young ladies being "finished off," in which 
process madame took much pride. We boasted 
three beauties, who were always put in the front 
rank when we went to concerts or to the theatre, 
Victoria Jordan looked absolutely like the pic- 
tures of the ill-fated Marie Antoinette, when 
dressed for a party. She married the year after 
this and we were all distressed by her sad fate. 
She and her husband were blown up in a steamer 
on the Mississippi on their wedding-trip. Carrie 
Elliot came next, I think, but many thought Adele 
Allston, my sister, was the loveliest. Carrie was 
my first love; she was seven years my senior and 
was not impatient of my devotion. She married 
a very charming man, a cousin, who became in 
time a bishop, greatly admired and beloved — 
Bishop Robert Elliot, of Texas. 

My principal trouble was the constant fear of 
fire. Soon after I got to school there was a big 
[ 129] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

fire not far off in the middle of the night, and I 
was waked by the ringing of the bells and the 
awful cries of "Fire!" I was terrified and, on 
getting up, the red glare which lit up the whole 
sky was awful. At that time the fire department 
was made up of volunteers and the engines were 
drawn entirely by man-power, an excited mob of 
black and white pulling on a tremendous loop of 
rope, running at full speed and yelling "Fire!" as 
they went. One afternoon when there was a fire 
near the Battery, and we were standing on the 
front step to see if we could get even a glimpse of it, 
as the engine passed, the impulse was too strong 
for me. I rushed out and took my place on the 
rope and ran down the street, pulling and madly 
yelling with the rest. The other girls who saw it 
were afraid to tell madame, seeming actually to 
fear capital punishment, and hoping that I would 
have the sense to come back, myself. So it was 
not until madame missed me in the study-hour 
and inquired where I was that the dreadful truth 
was revealed. To their great surprise, madame 
laughed heartily and sent the cook to the fire to 
bring me back. This was a great joy to the cook, 
as to visit a fire to them is what an opera-ticket 
is to us. She found me in the rabble, and, after 

[ 130] 



THE LITTLE SCHOOLHOUSE 

due delay, when she was supposed to be looking 
for me, and in which she was really enjoying the 
rare treat of meeting all her friends and imagining 
tragedies if there were none to see, we returned 
home fast friends. She held me tightly by the 
hand and narrated volubly the difficulty she had 
in finding me and then in getting me to come, how 
"she almost had to take me up and tote me" — 
all of which was pure fiction. I stood a miserable 
prisoner at the bar, but not at all repentant, only 
prepared for the worst. Madame used her finest 
sarcasm on me. 

"Well, mademoiselle, I did not know you had 
joined the fire-brigade ! I am sorry to deprive 
them of so strong and competent a member; but 
your parents, in placing you in my care, did not 
mention that as one of the branches in which I 
was to have you instructed, and you will now re- 
tire to bed without supper and remain there until 
to-morrow morning. And the next time the fire- 
bells ring, instead of allowing you to go out on the 
step to see it, you will be locked up." So, sorrow- 
fully, I went up to my little bed. But it was very 
good for me for, of course, I was exhausted; and 
the cook, whose interest had been aroused in me 
for the first time, brought me a particularly nice 
[131] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

supper. She had to wake me, for I was sound 
asleep. 

After the fire terror, my next trouble was the 
going to bed. My sister and I occupied a very 
nice but small room. She slept in a single ma- 
hogany four-poster, with a white valance around 
it, under which during the day my trundle-bed 
was rolled. I was always sent to bed at eight. 
The maid went up, lit the gas, and pulled the 
trundle-bed out and then left, returning in fifteen 
minutes to put out the gas. She was not of the 
friendly kind and I always jumped into bed as I 
heard her coming. The valance of the tall bed 
hung over a part of my bed, as, if it was pulled 
out all the way, the door could not open wide, 
and I always imagined a robber was hid under 
that valance ! My sister did not come till nine, 
and I lay there in a cold sweat till she came, per- 
fectly certain I heard the man breathing. I al- 
ways asked her in a whisper in French to look 
under the bed, and, of course, the man not being 
there, I recovered and was asleep before she got 
in bed; but no one can imagine how I suffered 
from this foolish fright. 

My music was another trial this first year. I 
had the crossest teacher that ever was. I cannot 
[ 132] 



THE LITTLE SCHOOLHOUSE 

remember her name, for we only called her "made- 
moiselle," but she scolded me and cracked my 
knuckles till I cried, at every lesson. These were 
my only troubles, however, and I was very happy 
and dreamed many dreams. It was hard to find a 
place where one could dream in peace; there were 
girls everywhere jabbering bad French; but I 
found a delightful place — under the dining-table ! 
I was a very morbid child with many imaginary 
sorrows, and it was a great relief to me to write 
journals and pour out my woes to these safe con- 
fidants. Every scrap of paper was secured and 
kept in my pocket, for at that day we had a large, 
capacious pocket in every frock, so that I had 
stores of paper, and when the outside world was 
too hard and unfeeling, I watched my chance 
when no one was near, and slipped to my quiet 
retreat under the big horseshoe dining-table, with 
its white cloth which swept the floor, and wrote 
and wrote until my griefs were assuaged, then 
rolled up my treasure and returned to the outer 
world refreshed. When the manuscript became 
too bulky I buried it in the garden under the pet- 
tis porum bushes. This I kept up for years, and 
in that way I buried my sorrows. 

In the early spring mamma wrote to madame 

[ 133 ] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

and asked that she would select and buy our 
spring and summer things, sending her a liberal 
check for the purpose. This delighted madame, 
and she bought and had made for us clothes that 
I could not abide and refused to wear at first. A 
straw bonnet trimmed with blue ribbons and a 
curl of straw around the front is a nightmare to 
me still. It was just Hke an old lady's bonnet in 
the sixties, and tied under the chin; but, as soon 
as that was done the bonnet fell back off of my 
head, and in order to keep it on at all I had to 
keep my left hand clapped on the back. Then 
the frock was a purple-and-white delaine, stripes 
of purple flowers on a white ground. This was 
made with a full waist buttoned at the back, what 
was called "half high neck," and had a very full 
deep frill around it of cotton lace ! Oh, how I 
hated it ! And when we were dressing for church 
the first time I was to wear it, I cried and stamped 
and said I would never wear it, and poor Delia 
was in despair, not knowing what madame would 
do if she heard me. 

She said: "Look at me, Bessie. My dress is 
just like yours and I am not saying a word." 

I answered: "You never do say a word. If 
you like it you can wear it, but I'm not going to." 
[134] 



THE LITTLE SCHOOLHOUSE 

And so it went on until madame's voice was 
heard, calling on us to start for church; and I let 
my dear, sweet sister button up my hateful frock 
and tie on the hateful hat and wipe my eyes and 
nose with a wet cloth, and we flew down the stairs 
in time to take our place in the procession; for we 
always went everywhere in twos, a teacher ahead 
and one behind. Madame never went to church 
herself. 

My beloved sister must have had an awful time 
with me. She never did anything wrong or queer, 
and this year was called not only the most beauti- 
ful but the best girl in the school. I was always 
causing her anxious moments. One night she 
found me crying bitterly when she came to bed. 
She asked me anxiously if I were ill. 

"Have you earache.''" 

"No." 

"Then what is the matter?" 

"Oh, Delia, I'm crying because I don't love 
any one." 

"Mercy, Bessie, you don't love me.?" 

"No. If any one else was as good to me as 
you are, I'd love them just as much !" 

"You certainly are a queer child. You mean 
to say you don't love mamma.?" 

[135] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

"If any one else did all she does for me, I'd 
care just as much for them." 

I sobbed on and poor Delia in despair said: 
"And you don't love papa ?" 

"Oh, yes, yes," I cried with the greatest relief; 
"I do love papa." 

"Then for mercy's sake stop crying and go to 
sleep." 



[136] 



CHAPTER XII 

SUMMER ON THE SEA— SCHOOL AND DELLA'S 

ILLNESS AND TRIP ABROAD — PAPA 

ELECTED GOVERNOR 

WE went to our summer home on Pawley's 
Island in June, and oh ! the deHght of 
the freedom of the Hfe on the sea- 
beach after the city, and the happiness of being 
at home. The bathing in the glorious surf early 
in the morning — we often saw the sun rise while 
we were in the water, for we were a very early 
household, and had breakfast at what would now 
be thought an unearthly hour, but my father did 
a tremendous day's work, which could only be 
accomplished by rising before the sun. And we 
children were by no means idle. We were re- 
quired to read and write and practise every day. 
Papa's rules were strict: we could never go out to 
walk or play on the beach in the afternoon unless 
we had done our tasks. I was required to prac- 
tise only half an hour, but it must be done. Then 
I wrote a page in a blank book and showed it to 
mamma for correction. She had me to write a 
journal of all that had taken place the day before, 
[137] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

instead of writing in a copy-book. I have one of 
the Httle old books before me now, commonplace 
and dull, but it was a very good idea for a child, I 
think. I must have acquired the diary habit then, 
for all my life it has been a comfort to me to record 
my joys and my woes, when they were not too 
deep. Then I read aloud to mamma from some 
classic for half an hour, so I did not go wild during 
the holidays. Add to this that papa did not 
allow us to read a story-book or a novel before the 
three-o'clock dinner, so that I read by myself in 
the mornings Motley's "Rise of the Dutch Re- 
public" and Prescott's "Philip II" — only a little 
portion every day, but there is no telling how much 
my taste was formed by it. 

There were three girls of my own age living on 
the island, and we met and walked together every 
afternoon. Jane and Rebecca Alston were twins 
and exactly alike; there was a tale that their most 
competent elder sister had once given a dose of 
medicine to the well one when they were lying in 
bed together, unable absolutely to tell one from 
the other. This tale was a comfort to me, for 
though I was devoted to Rebecca and did not Hke 
Jane, when we met I could not possibly tell which 
was my friend until Jane showed her haughty 
[138] 



SUMMER ON THE SEA 



nature in some way. They called each ** Sissy," 
so there was no help from that. The third girl, 
Kate La Bruce, was devoted to Jane and disliked 
Rebecca, but she was as helpless at first as I was. 
They have all gone to the beyond before me. 

Madame had occupied a house in Tradd Street, 
two doors east of Meeting, that first year; but 
when we returned in October to school she had 
moved into a very nice house in Meeting Street, 
with a delightful big garden full of rose-bushes 
and violets — such a joy to us, for we could roam 
about it during recess and in the afternoon. This 
year another boarder of my own age arrived, 
Emma Cheves. We looked at each other with 
suspicious scrutiny for a while, and then we be- 
came the most devoted friends. Emma was my 
first friend and remained my best friend all her 
life. It was a great grief when she passed away a 
year ago. She, like myself, lived on a big rice- 
plantation, so we had much in common, only her 
beautiful home was very near Savannah. 

This winter my dear, sweet, beautiful sister, 
who never did anything wrong and to whom all 
the teachers were devoted, was taken ill. It 
proved to be inflammatory rheumatism, and she 
was desperately ill. At that day trained nurses 
[ 139] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

v.ere unknown, and it seems a wonder that any 
one ever got over a desperate illness, but they 
did. Madame moved Delia into her own large, 
airy room, and she nursed her herself," with the 
assistance of one of our very good negro servants 
that papa sent down for that purpose, and who 
was devoted and vigilant; and after a long illness 
Delia recovered. It was spring when she was 
able to leave the room. The doctor advised a sea- 
voyage for her, and papa determined to take 
mamma and herself abroad. My mother's eldest 
sister, Mrs. North, offered to take the younger 
children, with the nurse, Mary O'Shea, while they 
were gone, to her home, Badwell, Abbeville dis- 
trict, the original home of mamma's people. This 
was very good of Aunt Jane, as it was quite an 
undertaking, and for six months. 

I do not remember the stay there with any 
pleasure, though my aunt and cousins were very 
good to me. I was so miserable about those who 
had crossed the ocean. I never expected to see 
them again. The only thing I remember very 
clearly was dreadful. There was a big boy there 
who used to tease me and laugh at me. Aunt 
Jane's coachman, Joe, a very good man, was ill 
all summer, and I got into the habit of asking to 
[ 140] 




MRS. R. F, W. ALLSTON (NEE ADfcLE PETIGRU). 
Portrait by Flagg about 1850. 



SUMMER ON THE SEA 



be allowed to take something nice from the dinner- 
table to him every day, which seemed to please 
my aunt, and was the thing in the day that gave 
me most pleasure. One day just before dinner- 
time this boy called to me: "Come, Bessie, quick. 
Joe wants to speak to you." I ran breathless, 
right up the steps, into the room, up to the bed. 
Joe was just in the agonies of death; a silver dol- 
lar hung over each eye — the negro method of 
closing the eyes in death — his mouth open and 
teeth all exposed with the last struggle for breath, 
and the terrible rattle in his throat ! No words 
can describe the effect it had upon me. Day and 
night he was before my eyes, and the dread sound 
was in my ears. I became really ill nervously, 
and they had to pet me and feed me up, and 
dose me with stimulants. 

I don't remember anything more until I was 
back at home on the plantation with mamma and 
papa and Delia all there, and seeing the lovely 
things they had brought for us. Then, too, I 
heard I was not to go to boarding-school again, 
but was to hve with the family in the beautiful 
house papa had bought and given to mamma in 
Meeting Street, next to the Scotch church. 

Papa brought with him from Paris a beautiful 
[141] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

piano mechanique. It was an upright rosewood 
piano which could be played naturally Hke any 
other, but when you closed the lid on the keys 
you could open the top, and there was a tiny rail- 
road-track on which you put wooden blocks about 
one-half inch thick, eight inches long and four 
wide, and having wires inserted into them much 
like a wool or cotton card. There was a handle 
which turned and carried these little flat cars 
along the track, but it took great skill to turn the 
handle evenly with the right hand and adjust the 
little flat cars with the left hand so that they 
would touch each other and make no break in the 
music. But dear Nelson, our head house-servant, 
soon learned to do it beautifully, and it was the 
greatest delight to him and he was ready to play 
all the evening. Now that there are so many in- 
ventions to give music this does not seem remark- 
able, but in 1855 it was most wonderful, and the 
greatest possible joy. We heard all the most 
beautiful operas and classical music that we never 
would have heard or known anything about. The 
music came in little wooden boxes about two feet 
long and six inches wide and high. They occu- 
pied a corner in the drawing-room, and when 
piled were about four feet high and four feet wide. 
[ 142] 



SUMMER ON THE SEA 



The dear little piano was moved during the war 
to the interior where we refugeed, and it is still in 
the family — very tired, but still sweet in tone. 
But the boxes of music were lost during the war. 
I have often regretted it greatly, because it seems 
to me it was quite as beautiful as any of the ma- 
chines I have heard since, and the collection of 
music was so fine. This piano cost ^i,ooo in 
Paris, besides the heavy expense of bringing it 
over to this country. 

My sister took music lessons while in Paris 
from M. Lestoquoi, a distinguished pianist, and 
made great strides in her playing; she really was 
a beautiful musician. 

My father was elected governor of the State the 
next year and as there would be necessarily a 
great deal of entertaining in which Delia would 
have to take part, papa decided that it would be 
best for her not to return to school, as it would 
be impossible for her to keep her mind on her 
studies. So, though she was only sixteen, she 
left school. There were balls and receptions and 
dinners, and though I had no part in them, it was 
hard for me to study. 

All my sister's ball dresses came from Paris, 
and it was the most exciting thing to see her dress 
[143] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

for a ball. At that time they wore the most beau- 
tiful artificial flowers, and I especially remember 
Delia in a frock of tulle — little pleatings from 
waist to floor of white tulle and then pink tulle, 
and long garlands of apple-blossoms with silver 
stamen, and a light garland twined in her smooth, 
glossy brown hair. She was a picture, truly, and 
naturally she was a great belle and had many 
suitors. She did not care for attention at all, and 
I think that only made her the more attractive. 
She was not allowed to dance the "round dances," 
as they were called — the waltz, the polka, and 
the mazurka — as only what was considered the 
fast set danced them; and a ring of spectators 
would form round the room to watch the eight or 
ten girls who were so bold as to dance them. 

The proprieties were really worshipped at that 
time. I remember hearing Delia severely scolded 
for having answered a note from a young man 
asking her to ride on horseback with him, in the 
first person. Poor Delia said: "But how else 
could I write, mamma.?" 

"You should have written : ' Miss Allston regrets 
that she will not be able to ride with Mr. Blank 
this afternoon.'" 

Such a thing as driving with a young man was 
[ 144] 



SUMMER ON THE SEA 



not possible, though at that time all the men had 
fine horses and buggies. But my sister, being a 
very good horsewoman, was allowed to ride occa- 
sionally with a young man. Girls were not al- 
lowed to receive visitors without a chaperon being 
in the room. Mamma found this part of her 
duty very trying, so I was sent to study my les- 
sons in the east drawing-room, where my sister 
received her visitors; and I certainly enjoyed the 
situation, if no one else did. There was a beauti- 
ful drop-light on the table by which I studied at 
one end of the room. I always murmured my les- 
sons aloud as I swayed backward and forward, 
to give the impression that I was oblivious to all 
but my book. But little escaped my ears. As a 
rule I thought the conversation dull, but one night 
I heard the young man say, laying his hand on 
the marble table beside them: "Have you ever 
seen any one as cold as this marble ?" 
Delia answered composedly: "No." 
Then he said: "I am looking now at one whose 
heart is just as cold." That rather pleased me, 
but as Delia seemed bored he did not proceed in 
that strain. 

Charleston was very gay for a few weeks in the 
winter at that time. There were three or four 
[145] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

balls every week. Three balls given by the St. 
Cecilia Society took place at intervals of ten days, 
for everything had to be crowded in before Lent 
came. These were the most exclusive and ele- 
gant balls of all; but the Jockey Club ball, which 
always ended the race week, was the largest and 
grandest — not so exclusive, because it included 
all the racing people. The races were the great 
excitement of the winter. Every one went and 
every one bet. Gloves and French sugar-plums 
came pouring in upon every girl who had any at- 
tention at all, for that was the only time that a 
girl could receive any offering from a man but 
flowers. 

These last were terribly stiff bouquets made up 
by a florist, with rows of trite roses and pinks and 
other flowers all wired on to a stick, forming a 
pyramid with geranium-leaves around the base, 
surrounded with a white lace-paper frill and 
wrapped in silver paper. My sister had one 
Suitor who had sense and, instead of sending these 
terrible stiff" pyramids, used to send her little reed 
baskets filled with little white musk-roses picked 
by himself in his aunt's garden. They were too 
sweet — no stems — just a quart of little darlings 
that you could put in your drawer, and be con- 
[146] 



SUMMER ON THE SEA 



scious of, every time you took a garment out for 
weeks — and so recall the donor. Alas, he was 
killed early in the war. This was Pinckney Alston, 
a gallant soldier and charming man. My father 
was very anxious for Delia to learn to sew, and 
she was at last spurred to the point of making a 
frock for herself. Up to this time her only achieve- 
ment in the way of sewing had been when she was 
about fourteen and we were at West Point for 
brother's graduation. Our great hero. General 
Robert E. Lee, then Colonel Lee, was superinten- 
dent at that time, and paid Delia a great deal of 
attention, and one day when he was lamenting 
that he had no one to hem six new handkerchiefs, 
his wife being absent, mamma suggested to my 
sister that she should offer to hem them for him, 
which after much hesitation she did. She did not 
finish all of them before we left, and sent them 
with a little note when we reached home, and 
received from him the most charming letter of 
thanks, which Delia always treasured among her 
sacred things. The great success of this venture 
with her needle seemed to have completely sat- 
isfied her ambition, until papa, to whom she was 
perfectly devoted, roused her to attempt and ac- 
complish the great feat of the frock. I well re- 
[147] 



X 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

member her appearance when she put it on for 
the first time. She was very proud of it, and 
apparently perfectly content with it, but it was a 
sore trial to me. To begin with, the color dis- 
pleased me. It was a yellow cambric with little 
black figures here and there. The skirt was very 
long and the waist very short and tight; the 
sleeves were meant to be long but failed of their 
intention, leaving about three inches of wrist un- 
adorned. No one liked to discourage her first 
effort by any criticism. She had received from a 
young man the day before she first donned it, a 
note requesting an interview alone at twelve 
o'clock, which had been granted. It did not seem 
to excite her at all, but I was greatly excited, for 
this was a very good-looking man, and I had 
never realized that he was devoted to her, he was 
so quiet and undemonstrative; but I knew this 
must mean something, it was so unusual. And I 
know if he had not been the son of one of papa's 
best friends, it would not have been permitted. 
What was my horror, then, when I saw Delia go- 
ing into the drawing-room to this fateful meeting 
in the yellow cambric frock with its inadequate 
sleeves ! The interview did not last very long, 
and Delia was sufl&ciently upset, when she rap- 
[148] 



SUMMER ON THE SEA 



idly went to her own room, to satisfy even my 
ideas ! 

I did not ask any questions, but I gleaned from 
the family talk that the young man had come to 
say good-by, as he was to sail for New York on 
his way to Europe the next day. Just at the 
hour at which the steamer left a beautiful pyram- 
idal bouquet arrived in a handsome silver bou- 
quet-holder, with Mr. Blank's card. 



[149] 



CHAPTER XIII 
CHRISTMAS AT CHICORA WOOD 

WHILE we were at boarding-school we 
had not gone into the country for the 
short Christmas hoHdays; but now we 
went a week before Christmas with all the house- 
hold, and did not return till about the loth of 
January. Oh, the joy of the Christmas on the 
plantation ! We had to have presents for so many 
— fruit and candy and dolls and nuts and hand- 
kerchiefs and stockings and head-handkerchiefs. 
Rejoicing and festivities everywhere ! All busy 
preparing and selecting Christmas presents, and 
decorating the house with holly. Christmas Eve, 
making egg-nog, and going round with little chil- 
dren helping them hang up stockings and, later, 
going round with grown-ups and filling stockings. 
Christmas morning very early, "Merry Christ- 
mas!" echoing all over the house; all the house- 
servants stealing in softly to "ketch yu," that is, 
say the magic words "Merry Christmas!" before 
you did. Then joyful sounds, "I ketch yu !" and 
you must produce your gift, whereupon they bring 
[150] 



CHRISTMAS AT CHICORA WOOD 

from the ample bosom or pocket, as the case may 
be, eggs tied in a handkerchief — two, three, six, 
perhaps a dozen, according to the worldly position 
of the donor. Such jolly, gay, laughing visitors, 
a stream coming all the time. As fast as one 
party left another came, always making great 
plans to walk softly so as to catch you, so that 
dressing was a prolonged and difficult matter, for 
you must respond and open the door when "Merry 
Christmas, I ketch yu !" sounded. Breakfast was 
apt to be late, because cook and all the servants 
had to creep up softly to each door and "ketch" 
each member and receive their presents, and open 
them, and exhibit them, and compare them, and 
see the children's presents, and do an immense deal 
of unnecessary talking and joking. So that it was 
hard for them to settle down and come to prayers, 
which papa had always in the library, and then 
bring in the breakfast and resume the attitude of 
respectful and well-trained servants. 

Such delicious breakfast — sausage, and hogs- 
head cheese, and hominy, and buckwheat cakes, 
and honey and waffles, and marmalade, which 
mamma made from the oranges which grew all 
round the piazza. And before we got up from table, 
the dancing began in the piazza, a fiddle playing the 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

gayest jigs, with two heavy sticks knocking to mark 
the time, and a triangle and bones rattHng in the 
most exciting syncopated time; and all the young 
negroes on the plantation, and many from the other 
plantations belonging to papa, dancing, dancing, 
dancing. Oh, it was gay ! They never stopped from 
the time they began in the morning, except while 
we were at meals, until ten o'clock at night. The 
dancers would change, one set go home and get 
their dinner, while another took the floor. Fid- 
dler, stick-knocker, all would change; but the 
dance went on with the new set just as gaily as 
with the first. And this went on more or less for 
three days, for not a stroke of work was done dur- 
ing that hoHday except feeding the cattle, pigs, 
and sheep, and horses — just three days of pure 
enjoyment and fun. Christmas night papa always 
set off beautiful fireworks with Nelson's help. 
This was a grand entertainment for all, white and 
black. There was much feasting at Christmas, 
for a beef and several hogs were always killed and 
extra rations of sugar, coffee, molasses, and flour 
were given out, and great quantities of sweet po- 
tatoes. Altogether, it was a joyful time. 

There were three days at New Year too, and 
then the clothes were given out. Maum Mary 
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CHRISTMAS AT CHICORA WOOD 

began early in the morning after New Year's Day 
to bring out and pile in log-cabin fashion in the 
piazza rolls of red flannel, rolls of white homespun 
(unbleached muslin), and of thick homespun, and 
of calico for the women. Then, for the men, rolls 
of jeans, dark-colored, and rolls of white for shirts, 
and then rolls of the most beautiful white stuff 
like the material of which blankets are made. 
This was called plains, and with the jeans was 
imported from England, as being stronger and 
warmer than any to be got in this country. There 
were buttons and threads and needles in each roll 
of stuff, suitable for that thickness of material. 
All these little piles made of rolls filled up the very 
big piazza, and it took nearly all day for the long 
lists to be read out and each individual to come 
up and get their stuffs. Each woman had a red 
flannel roll, two white homespun rolls, two colored 
homespun, and two calico. The men had one red 
flannel, two white homespun, two jeans, and one 
white plains. Then came the blankets. Every 
year some one got new blankets, very strong, warm 
wool blankets. One year the men got them, the 
next the women, the next the children; so every 
household had some new ones every year. 

The children's clothing was given out the next 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

day. This took longer. Each child came up to 
Maum Mary where she sat surrounded by whole 
bales of stuff, and stood in front of her. She took 
the end of the homespun, held it on top of the 
child's head and brought the material down to the 
floor and then up again to the head. This would 
make one full garment for the child, and was the 
way to assure there being enough, with no waste. 
The red flannel was handled the same way, and the 
colored homespun for every-day frocks, and the 
calico for Sunday frocks. It was an interesting 
thing to watch: a name was read out by mamma, 
papa, or my sister from the book, and up the step 
came the little girl, dropped a courtesy to each 
of us and then to Maum Mary, and stood before 
her to be measured. Maum Mary was sometimes 
inclined to be very impatient and cross, but she 
dared not give way to the inclination openly, with 
us all watching her. She would just jerk the 
timid ones around a little; but if papa was there 
he would say quite sternly: "Gently, Mary, gen- 
tly." The little girl, as she went out loaded with 
her things and the things of her little brothers and 
sisters, would drop another courtesy of thanks. 
The boys were taught to "Tech dey furud," as 
Maum Mary called it; being really just w^hat the 
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CHRISTMAS AT CHICORA WOOD 

military salute is now; but they were generally 
very awkward about it. 

The hardest thing of all was the shoes. Every 
man, woman, and child on the place, about a 
month before, was called on to give their measure 
— a nice, light strip of wood about an inch wide 
the length of their foot. Each was supposed to 
put the weight of the foot down on the piece of 
wood and have some one mark and cut it off the 
right length; then take it himself, so that there 
would be no mistake, to Mr. Belflowers, who wrote 
the full name upon it. These measures Mr. 
Belflowers brought to papa, all clearly and dis- 
tinctly marked in pencil; and they were sent to 
the factor in Charleston, who took them to a 
reliable shoe dealer, and each measure was fitted 
into a pair of shoes. These shoes were all boxed 
up and sent up to the different plantations in time 
for distribution on the third day after New Year. 
Darkies have a very great dislike of big feet, so 
many of them were tempted to send too short a 
measure; and then what a disappointment and 
what suppressed groans and lamentations when 
the new shoes were tried on ! 

"Somebody change my meshur." And often I 
was called on to examine the stick and read out 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

the name on it. No mistake there. But these 
victims of vanity were few, and were always much 
ridiculed by the others who had wisely given the 
full length of the foot. 

"Ki, Breder, yu got small fut, yu kno'. Yu 
haf fu suffer. Me, I got big fut an I kin run een 
my new shu'." 

There was much visiting among the neighbors 
during this season. Every one had friends from 
the city to spend the holidays in the country. 
The plantations were large, so the neighbors were 
not near; but they all had an abundance of horses 
and vehicles, and the roads were excellent. An 
absolutely flat country, the dirt roads were kept 
in the best condition. There were Mr. and Mrs. 
Poinsett at the White House, eight miles south of 
Chicora at the point of land between the Pee Dee 
and the Black Rivers. Mr. Poinsett was a distin- 
guished man, a great botanist. It was he who 
brought from Mexico the beautiful Flor del Buen 
Noche to the Department of Agriculture; and it 
was named Poinsettia in his honor. He was sec- 
retary of war under Van Buren and was largely 
instrumental in the estabHshment of the Naval 
Academy at Annapolis. He married Mrs. John 
Julius Pringle, nee Izard, a widow, and made a 
[156] 



CHRISTMAS AT CHICORA WOOD 

most beautiful garden at her plantation, the White 
House — so named originally because it was a 
little white house in the midst of a field. Mr. 
and Mrs. Poinsett spent their summers at New- 
port and most of the winters in Washington. 

Mr. and Mrs. Julius Izard Pringle (nee Lynch) 
and their daughter Mary, afterward Countess 
Yvan des Francs, who was my sister's dearest 
friend, being just her age — lived at Greenfield, 
eight miles southwest of us on the Black River in 
winter, and went to Newport in summer. Mr. 
and Mrs. Ralph Izard (nee Pinckney) and their 
large family lived at Weymouth, six miles south of 
us on the Pee Dee. They spent their winters there 
and travelled abroad during the summers. Doctor 
Sparkman and his family were at Dirliton, five 
miles away. Doctor Stark Heriot four miles at 
Birdfield, Mr. and Mrs. Nat Barnwell (nee Fraser) 
at Enfield, three miles away. These were all south 
of us. 

To the north were Mr. and Mrs. Francis Wes- 
ton (nee Tucker) and their large family. The eld- 
est daughter has been a most remarkable woman. 
I speak of her as Miss Penelope in "The Woman 
Rice Planter." Mrs. Weston was the daughter of 
my father's eldest sister, who married Mr. John 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

Tucker, had two daughters and died; when Mr. 
Tucker remarried twice and had a large number 
of children, — five sons, four of whom he educated 
in the most thorough manner as physicians, send- 
ing them to Paris for a final course, as he said the 
owner of a plantation with large numbers of slaves 
could best be fitted for the position by a good 
medical education. So there were three Doctor 
Tuckers owning plantations north of us on the 
Pee Dee River, and one Doctor Tucker owning 
plantations on the Waccamaw River. They did 
not practise their profession beyond their planta- 
tions, however, but were mighty hunters and good 
citizens. 

Just north of the Weston's historic plantation, 
Hasty Point, lived at Bel Rive Mr. and Mrs. 
J. Harleston Read (nee Lance). This was entailed 
property, a part of the very large John Mann 
Taylor estate. The Reads, like the Westons, spent 
their summers in Charleston, where they owned 
beautiful houses. Mrs. Weston, once speaking to 
my mother of the terrible move to and from the 
city each spring and fall, said: "We have to take 
fifty individuals with us in the move, I mean chil- 
dren and all." 

My mother: "Why, Elizabeth, how is that pos- 
sible?'* 

[158] 



CHRISTMAS AT CHICORA WOOD 

She answered: '*We cannot possibly separate 
husband and wife for six months; so Harry, the 
coachman, has to have his wife and children, and 
the same with the cook, and the butler, and the 
laundress, until we are actually moving an army 
every time we move." 

This shows some of the bondage of the old sys- 
tem not generally thought of. 



[159] 



CHAPTER XIV 

LIFE IN CHARLESTON -PREPARATIONS 
FOR WAR 

WE returned to Charleston, January the 
15th, in the midst of the gay season. 
Of course, I went back to school and 
had little to do with the gaiet}^, except to see 
Delia dress for the balls and hear her account of 
them the next morning. 

I had always suffered much from what I know 
now was dyspepsia, but it had no name then. I 
just felt badly at eleven every day if I ate any 
breakfast. In our family it was considered the 
proper thing to eat breakfast, and I had always 
had a fair appetite and ate my plate of hominy 
and butter, and an egg or a piece of sausage and 
then a waffle and syrup or honey. That was our 
regular breakfast; but I began to find, if I ate my 
plate of hominy, I was perfectly miserable by 
eleven; and so I ate less and less until I found out 
the delightful fact that, if I ate nothing, I did not 
have the misery at eleven. But, when my mother 
found I was eating no breakfast, she was shocked 
and distressed and said I could not possibly go to 
[160] 



LIFE IN CHARLESTON 



school and study on a perfectly empty stomach. 
I must eat my hominy — a mother now would 
say " my cereal." I said : "Just let me eat a waffle 
and no hominy." But the hominy was considered 
the most nourishing, easily digested thing, with a 
soft-boiled egg. As I was always very hungry in 
the morning, I yielded readily and went on suffer- 
ing more and more — burning cheeks and flaming 
eyes and so cross every one was afraid to speak 
to me from eleven till two. Then it passed off, 
and I was exhausted and ate a hearty dinner. 
This went on until I could go no longer. I was 
too miserable and had to tell mamma and stay in 
bed. She sent for the family doctor, a white-haired 
old gentleman, Doctor Peter Porcher. He ques- 
tioned me and punched me all over with his long 
forefinger, and then said to me: 

"What would you do if you had a horse that 
was worn out from overwork .?" 

Very much tried by this question so alien to 
my condition, I said languidly: "Let him rest, I 
suppose." 

"Exactly," said the little doctor. "Exactly, 
and that is what we must do to your stomach and 
digestive organs, which are worn out by over- 
work." 

[i6i] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

Then he asked mamma to have two bedroom 
pitchers of warm water brought, and he made me 
drink glass after glass of that tepid water, which 
he handed me himself, until my system was emp- 
tied of every particle of undigested food. Then 
he said to mamma that for three days I must have 
absolutely nothing but a cup half full of milk 
filled up with hot water in the morning, nothing 
more. He patted my hand and said: 

"Then 3^ou will be quite well and have no more 
trouble." 

I stayed in bed that day and was so exhausted 
that I slept and rested and never thought of food; 
but the next morning, when they brought me my 
cup of milk and water, I was desperately hungry 
and very restless. So I sent for mamma and told 
her that if she kept me in bed I could not possibly 
endure the three days' fast, for I thought of noth- 
ing but how hungry I was; but, if she let me get 
up and go to school and study my lessons, I would 
not mind it so much. Mamma hesitated a little, 
but knew me so well that she was sensible and 
gave me permission to get up and dress and go 
to school; which I did, getting there just in time. 
I said my lessons and enjoyed myself greatly, the 
freedom from gnawing distress in my chest mak- 
[162I 



LIFE IN CHARLESTON 



ing me very gay; and, at the end of the three days, 
I returned to my natural diet and was in perfect 
health, and for years free from any kind of indi- 
gestion. I just narrate this as an instance of the 
heroic methods of the past. We were brought 
up to make light of and endure all pain silently 
just as long as we could stand it, and then submit 
to any treatment prescribed by the doctor, how- 
ever drastic. For years I had suffered daily pain 
and discomfort, but not severe enough to attract 
attention to me, as I did not complain, was only 
miserable and cross, and correspondingly gay as 
soon as the misery was gone. And now I was 
well! 

In the spring I went to my first child's party. 
It was given by the Cleland Hugers in their house 
in Legate Street for their beautiful son, two years 
older than myself. Alas, he was one of the first 
to fall in battle during our war. He and Oliver 
Middleton were both so beautiful and both fell 
gallantly fighting when mere boys. But there 
was no shadow in that bright scene to tell us 
what was coming. Mamma had a pretty white 
muslin frock made for me, and my sweet sister 
took great pleasure in dressing me for the party 
— a very full, very short skirt barely covering 

[163] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

my knees, a long expanse of white stocking, and 
black slippers. When I stood before the big 
cheval glass, Delia fixing some blue ribbons on 
my tightly scraped back, tightly plaited hair, I 
began to cry and exclaimed: 

"Delia, I am too ugly to live ! I can't go to the 
party !" 

My dear sister expostulated and assured me I 
looked sweet, and said how pretty my frock was, 
etc., etc., but it only added fuel to fire; and I 
cried the more. At last she lost patience and 
said: 

"Well, if you go on crying, you will be a sight 
with red, swollen eyes and nose" — and I stopped 
at once, and let her bathe them, and try to re- 
move some of the damage; and I went down. 

It was an awful ordeal, for Charley was invited, 
too, and May, the Irish nurse, was sent to take 
us; and, when she got to the door, she asked to 
see Mrs. Huger and commended us specially to 
her care. Charley had never been to a party be- 
fore. He looked beautiful in his Scotch plaid kilt 
mamma had brought from abroad; but he was 
very frightened and, just as soon as Mrs. Huger 
released his hand, he found a safe place behind a 
door where he could see and not be seen, nor be in 
[164] 



LIFE IN CHARLESTON 



danger of receiving any attention. Mrs. Huger 
took me into the dancing-room, and immediately a 
small boy I knew, who had long golden curls, asked 
me to go to supper with him. I gladly accepted, for 
I had had visions of no partner for supper, which 
was the greatest catastrophe which could happen. 
So I was quite pleased to accept my very youthful 
beau; but in a few minutes more the biggest boy 
in the room came and asked me for supper ! And 
I had to say I was engaged ! It was dreadful. I 
hated my golden curled devoted, with a fierce 
hatred. And it was worse when supper came, for 
I suddenly remembered my responsibility about 
Charley, who had to be provided with supper; 
and my little partner seemed reluctant to help me 
look for him. The rooms were crowded and it 
was dreadful to roam around alone looking for 
Charley, and when at last I found him behind the 
door he was crying; but, after I took his hand and 
led him to the supper-room with its beautiful 
cakes with a cupid on a wire on top of each, and 
the dishes of ice-cream and cakes, and silver dishes 
of candy and kisses, he soon recovered. And I 
found that my Httle beau had busied himself, 
while I was gone, getting three saucers of ice- 
cream and three slices of cake, so he rose in my 
[165] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

estimation; and the party ended most happily. 
And I found, though I was ugly, boys liked to 
talk to me and to dance with me, which, after all, 
was the main thing. 

These years were very happy ones. Mamma 
enjoyed the return to the social life of the city 
very much after her long experience of country 
life; and, of course, it was a joy to have her lovely 
daughter to introduce into society. My sister 
was absolutely docile and did just what mamma 
wanted her to do. She never had a wish about 
her own clothes, and no wonder, for mamma had 
perfect taste and got everything for her that was 
beautiful. 

About this time I remember two little experi- 
ences of my own. My dear sister had always been 
willing to share her high-post mahogany bed and 
beautiful room with me; but papa thought I should 
have my own room, as I was old enough. So the 
room next to hers was fitted up for me and was 
just as pretty as could be, with its own tall four- 
poster and pretty chintz curtains and with the 
bathroom attached. But still I slept in Delia's 
room, though I dressed and kept my clothes in 
my own room. But one day when papa returned 
from Columbia he asked me if I slept well in my 
[i66] 



LIFE IN CHARLESTON 



own beautiful bed now; and the truth had to come 
out that I never had slept there, at which he 
looked grave and said: "It is my wish that you 
sleep in your own room." So that night I did so, 
and the following night also, and began to think I 
should end by Hking it. It was spring and all the 
windows were open, and the third night I was 
awakened by shrieks from Price's Alley, which 
ran along beside our garden wall ! Screams and 
cries for help and sounds of blows falling ! It was 
just as distinct as if it had been in the next room. 
I fled to Delia's room and never again attempted 
to sleep in my own room. The next morning we 
heard it was a drunken man beating his wife; 
some Irish families occupied a house together 
there. But it was the end of papa's efforts to 
make me a self-respecting individual. I stayed 
with my sister until she was married, and then I 
took my younger sister, whom I adored, in with 
me. She was five years younger than myself, but 
a very different nature, as brave as a lion. Noth- 
ing scared her nor made her nervous. 

The other experience was, I know, some years 

later, for I was big enough to have boy, as well as 

girl friends; and one afternoon mamma told me I 

could have the open carriage to take some of my 

[167] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

friends for a drive. I was much delighted and in- 
vited Minnie Hayne and WilHe Wilkinson, and 
Minnie invited another boy. We were having a 
very nice time, and Minnie was in such a gale of 
spirits that she began to sing, and the boys joined 
in, and I began to feel a little nervous for fear we 
might meet some of my family, when the carriage 
stopped and Daddy Aleck, the coachman, who al- 
ways sat as straight as if he had been trained at 
West Point, turned stiffly round and said: 

"Miss Betsy, if unna (you-all) kyant behave 
unna self, I'll tek yu straight home ! Dis ain't no 
conduk fu de Gubner karridge!" 

My feelings are better imagined than described. 
However, it was most successful. The rest of the 
drive was perfectly proper; and after a while when 
we got up the road one of the boys brought out a 
box of sugar-plums, which we ate most noiselessly 
and discreetly, and we had a delightful drive and 
mamma never heard of our undue hilarity. These 
seem very trivial things to record, but young girls 
are interested in trivial things; and the surge of 
events toward the great Civil War, which was ap- 
proaching, was not felt by me at all. I realized 
more and more the beauty and comfort of my 
home and surroundings. 

[i68] 



LIFE IN CHARLESTON 



I must describe our servants. Nelson was the 
butler and house-servant. (He was a mulatto, 
the son of a Mr. Thompson who had been over- 
seer at Chicora before Mr. Belflowers. He was a 
Northern man, very smart and capable; but after 
this papa sent him away. Nelson adopted his 
father's surname, Thompson.) He was the best, 
most faithful, intelligent man possible, and we 
were all devoted to him. Then came William 
Baron, who was very black and very heavily built, 
but an excellent servant, with very courteous man- 
ners. He took the greatest delight in arranging 
all the flowers in the house, which I also loved to 
do; and there was always a race between William 
and myself as to who should do it. I remember 
specially one yellow flat bowl on a stand with 
Greek figures in black chasing round it, a perfectly 
lovely thing for flowers; and it nearly broke my 
heart when I found William had changed the 
flowers in it and arranged them to his mind. Wil- 
liam was my brother's (Colonel Ben Allston's) 
body-servant during the whole war. 

After the war William Baron became well known 

in Charleston as a caterer, cook, and provider of 

elegant entertainments. He took charge of the 

suppers for the St. Cecilia, which were always very 

[169] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

handsome and elaborate and quite a feature. In- 
deed, William was quite a personage, with grand 
manners, and perfectly honest. He had but one 
fault, to look upon the wine when it was red; he 
habitually took more than was good for him and 
lived too high, so that his health gave out before 
he was at all an old man. He always showed en- 
thusiastic pleasure when he met any of the family, 
but especially my eldest brother to whom he had 
belonged. Mas' Ben continued to fill his ideas as 
to what constituted a gentleman. Whenever my 
brother came to the city and he knew it, he would 
send round a dish of delicious chicken salad or a 
shrimp pie, for which he was famous, or a Char- 
lotte Russe, or some dish that he knew Mas' Ben 
specially liked. It was always a pleasure to meet 
William; his very black, round face shone with de- 
light and every one of his very white teeth showed, 
as he assured you that "it did his heart good to 
look upon you and you were looking so fine and 
so well." 

Then there was Stephen Gallant, who was 
papa's special servant and valet, but when there 
was much company he helped with the waiting, 
which he understood well. Joe Washington was 
the cook. He had been trained two years by a 
[170] 



LIFE IN CHARLESTON 



man who kept a very fine restaurant, Sam Lee. 
Phoebe and Nannie were the maids, and Nellie, 
Nelson's wife, the laundress, assisted by a young 
girl. Daddy Moses, William's father, was brought 
down from the country to take charge of the yard 
and be gardener under a white man, Mr. Wubb, 
who was employed. Harris, a boy in the house, 
attended the bell and ran errands. They were all 
good servants and I was fond of all but Stephen, 
whom I could not bear. He put on great airs be- 
cause he went with papa to Columbia always, and 
felt himself superior to the others, who jokingly 
called him the ''little guv'ner," because he imi- 
tated papa's walk and manner generally, in an 
absurd way, as he was quite small and very black. 
My sister became engaged the year before the 
war. She had a beautiful engagement ring, a 
diamond. She also wore always a magnificent 
ruby which had been left her by Uncle Tom, cap- 
tain in the navy. One day she was sewing before 
dinner and had taken off her rings and slipped 
them into her work-box, and when we went in to 
dinner she left it in the hall. When we came out 
from dinner and she opened her work-box to get 
the rings, they were gone ! It is a very remark- 
able thing that the servants were not suspected at 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

all. There was a door in the hall opening on to 
the driveway, and it was always taken for granted 
that a thief had slipped in, opened the box, and 
taken out the only valuables in it and escaped. 
The police were notified to look out for a sneak- 
thief, and they reported great activity on their 
part, ending in nothing. The rings were never 
heard of again. My sister was much blamed for 
her carelessness. I know now that poor Stephen 
took those rings. He was not waiting on table 
that day, and knew well the value of the jewels 
and my sister's habit of slipping them off into her 
box while she was sewing. He knew about the 
approaching war, and he knew they would always 
command a good sum of money, for the great 
value of the pigeon-blood ruby had often been 
discussed. And Stephen was the only one who 
ran off to the U. S. fleet before the end of the con- 
flict. Soon after my father's death he took his 
whole family but one boy, Brutus, put them in a 
small boat and rowed through the waves from the 
inlet next to Pawley's Island and joined the fleet. 
It must have all been arranged before, for they 
were on the lookout for the boat and picked them 
up safely. Of course, this was a great risk, and 
it seems strange, after braving the waves of the 
ocean in a small boat, Stephen should have been 
[ 172 ] 



LIFE IN CHARLESTON 



drowned some years after the war in the Wacca- 
maw River. He had overloaded his boat with 
rough rice and it sank. His son Brutus, who was 
with him, escaped by swimming to shore. 

When the family went into the country this 
year, early in December, my aunt Ann (Uncle 
Tom's widow, the buying of whose negroes at her 
urgent request ruined my father) asked mamma to 
leave me with her, so that I could continue at 
school until the holidays and so not lose my place 
in my classes. So I stayed and went to school 
from her house. The holidays began December 
20. I was to take the steamer Nina, which was 
the only way to reach Georgetown then except to 
travel the sixty miles in our own carriage, as my 
mother always did; but, of course, mamma and the 
family having gone that way, I had to take the 
boat. It so happened that the day for the sailing 
of the Nina was a day of wild excitement, as it 
was the 20th of December, i860. The Ordinance 
of Secession was passed that morning in Charles- 
ton, and the whole town was in an uproar. Pa- 
rades, shouting, firecrackers, bells ringing, can- 
non on the forts booming, flags waving, and ex- 
cited people thronging the streets. I was to go 
on board the Nina at nine o'clock and sleep there, 
as she sailed at an unearthly hour in the morning. 

[173] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

My aunt's coachman was to drive me down, but 
he came to her and said: 

"Miss, I cudn't possible keep dem horse frum 
run, wid all dis racket. Dem is jest de trimble 
en prance een de stable now, en I dasn't dare tek 
dem on de street." 

We all knew they were very spirited, overfed 
horses, and that the man was right. It would be 
a great risk to attempt to drive them. So it was 
decided I would have to walk. My two cousins 
had come to see me off and walked with me — 
J. Johnston Pettigrew, my great hero and ideal of 
a man; and Charley Porcher, who was only a little 
older than myself and my great friend. Fortu- 
nately my trunk had been sent down in the morn- 
ing. It had rained and when we got down to the 
wharf it was wet and muddy, and I had no over- 
shoes. Without a word of warning. Cousin John- 
ston picked me up in his arms and carried me all 
the way to the boat. I was overcome by the 
struggle within me, mortification that I should be 
treated like a child when I was fifteen and thought 
myself grown up, and delight and gratification 
that Cousin Johnston cared enough for me to do 
it, and joy that I was in the arms of my adored 
hero ! I never saw Cousin Johnston again. He 
[174] 



LIFE IN CHARLESTON 



entered the army at once and, after distinguishing 
himself in every action and being promoted to be 
general, he was killed at Gettysburg, a terrible 
loss to our army, and my first sorrow. 

South Carolina having seceded from the Union, 
military preparations began at once. My brother 
Ben, who had been educated at West Point and 
served in the army until three years before, raised 
and equipped a company of cavalry at his own ex- 
pense, aided by my father. It was called "Mari- 
on's Men of Winyah." The whole country was 
in wild excitement, drilling and preparing for war. 
Every one volunteered, old, young, and middle- 
aged. It was hard to keep the boys at school. In 
the spring every man we knew in Charleston was 
in one company or another. The Charleston 
Light Dragoons and the Washington Light In- 
fantry were the favorites, but there were many 
other companies of great popularity. 

One State after another followed South Caro- 
lina's example, and a convention was called at 
Montgomery, Ala., which elected Jefferson Davis 
President of the Southern Confederacy. 



[175] 



CHAPTER XV 

BOARDING-SCHOOL IN WAR TIMES 

54 S soon as war was declared Madame Tog- 
/~% no moved her school from Charleston to 
Columbia, as every one knew it was only 
a question of time as to when the city would be 
shelled. She rented Barhamville, a well-known 
old school a few miles out of Columbia, and in 
November, 1862, my little sister and myself were 
sent there. The journey is specially impressed on 
me, for my eldest sister had talked a great deal of 
Mary Pringle's delightful brother, Julius, who had 
left Heidelberg (where he had graduated and was 
then taking a law course) as soon as he heard of 
secession, and had run the blockade to join the 
Confederate army. She had been at home when 
he called and I had not, and she talked so much 
about him that I said, with my sharp tongue: 
"That seemed a strange way for a girl engaged to 
one man to talk of another, and wondered how 
her fiance would like it if he could hear." She 
did not in the least mind this, but continued her 
praise, so that my opposition was roused; and, 
when, as we were taking the train, with pack- 
[176] 



BOARDING-SCHOOL IN WAR TIMES 

ages and much impedimenta, our good Phibby in- 
cluded, for she was to go with us, Delia brought 
up the young man and introduced him to us, I 
said to her when he went to make some inquiry 
at the office for her: "So this is your paragon! 
You certainly shouldn't choose for me!" How- 
ever, he was a most attentive companion on the 
journey, and stood and talked to me all the way 
to Charleston, where we were to spend a few days 
before going on to Columbia. Jinty made me 
very miserable, because I was painfully dignified 
and speaking in the most correct and careful way, 
till I saw that while he stood and talked to me, 
she, on the opposite seat, was shooting peanuts 
skilfully into his coat-pockets. I could not speak 
to her and reprimand her, for she would have 
answered me back promptly, and I was terribly 
afraid he would turn and see what my little sister 
was doing. He did not, however, and must have 
been much amazed later to find his pockets full of 
peanuts. 

Barhamville was much larger than any house 
madame had ever rented before, and so she had 
many more boarders, and the character of the 
school was somewhat altered. She still tried to 
make French the language of the school, but it 
[^77] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

was much harder to carry this out. Most of the 
girls were eighteen or nineteen and knew no 
French, so that it was impossible for them to con- 
verse in it. Finding this the case, madame made 
a rule that no one should speak at table except to 
say, **Passez moi le pain s'il vous plait," and all 
the other necessary requests for food; for we had 
two long tables and only one waitress, Madame 
walked up and down the room while we ate, so as 
to keep order. Very soon she began to find it 
very hard to get the good food on which she al- 
ways prided herself. Tea and coffee had to be 
left out, and one thing after another, until we 
ceased to come into the dining-room at all for 
supper. Two large trays of very dry corn-dodgers 
were brought into the schoolroom at tea-time, 
accompanied by two large pitchers of water and 
a tray of glasses. The girls were all very good 
and never complained. Every one knew there 
were privations in their own homes, and felt that 
madame was doing the best she could for us. 

Madame had been fortunate enough to secure 
very good teachers. Mademoiselle le Prince, the 
French teacher, was quite a remarkable woman as 
far as teaching went. Educated at a convent just 
outside of Paris, she had the best accent, and it 
[178] 



BOARDING-SCHOOL IN WAR TIMES 

was her one idea in life to give a correct and thor- 
ough knowledge of French; not only to have her 
pupils speak it correctly, but to have them write 
with perfect precision all the difficult terminations 
of the "participe passe." She was hated by many 
girls, she was so cross, but she was a delight to 
me, for she was the real thing. I spoke French 
glibly and wrote it in the same easy way, to my 
own satisfaction, but when I got mademoiselle's 
point of view I was heartily ashamed of my 
French and very soon rectified all that by hard 
study, to her delight. The teacher of English 
was the Reverend Mr, Johnson. He helped out 
his salary, which was inadequate to his needs, by 
mending shoes, which he did well. 

The music teacher. Monsieur Torriani, was also 
a joy. Thoroughly competent, most appreciative 
of good work, it was a delight to work for him. 
My music had become my great pleasure; and, 
when I took my first lesson from this charming, 
appreciative Italian, I felt I was going to have a 
delightful year at school, whatever the privations 
might be. Madame assigned me two hours for 
practice, but very soon I felt that was not enough 
and begged her to let me have another hour. She 
said it was impossible; there were only three 
[179] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

pianos in the school and I already had more than 
my share of these three. I still worried her, and 
at last she said : *' If you are willing to get up early 
and practise an hour on the piano in the drawing- 
room, you may do it; but it will be hard, for it 
will have to be before the fire is made up." I 
accepted with many thanks; and all that winter I 
got up at six, broke the ice in my pitcher to per- 
form my hasty ablutions, and putting on my 
cloak took my candle into the drawing-room, and 
often with tears rolling down my cheeks practised 
that hour ! My hands were so swollen with chil- 
blains that I was ashamed to take my music les- 
son. 

I began to take singing lessons, too, and spent 
the whole of six months on exercises before I took 
a single song. I can never forget my delight when 
Monsieur Torriani applauded my first song — a 
very high, lovely little song from the opera of 
"Martha." "Dormi pur ma, il mio riposo tu m'ai 
tolto, ingrato cor Buona notte, buon dormir." I 
had a very small, sweet voice, with clear, birdlike, 
high notes, but it seemed so very little, for we 
had a girl in school with a beautiful big voice, 
Sallie McCoullough, such a sweet, good, simple 
girl. If she had been more sophisticated she 
[i8o] 



BOARDING-SCHOOL IN WAR TIMES 

would have had a happier Hfe. M. Torriani took 
delight in training and developing her voice, which 
was quite fit for opera, but she was no actress, 
and failed to make the success she should have 
made through that. Dear, big, sweet, simple 
Sallie ! Every one loved her, and when we got 
her to sing "Home, Sweet Home" and other old 
songs in the schoolroom in the dusk without ac- 
companiment, we all wept quarts. One day I said 
to M. Torriani that I was going to stop my sing- 
ing lessons, that I had no voice and it was only a 
mortification. 

He asked with a great air of respect: "Did you 
think of going on the stage ?" 

"Oh, Monsieur Torriani, don't make fun of me. 
I am too wretched. I have so little voice, it really 
is none, and I would so love to sing." 

Then he sobered down and said: "Mademoi- 
selle, you must not stop. Your voice is little but 
very sweet and vous avez le feu sacre. You can- 
not stop. You will give more pleasure all your 
life than many a big voice. You will bring com- 
fort to the sad heart. No, you must not stop, 
you!" 

Then he went on to ask how long I practised at 
a time, and I told him half an hour. "Oh, nevair, 
[i8i] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

nevair," he exclaimed, and told me never to prac- 
tise more than ten minutes at one time, and to 
spare and protect my "precious little instrument," 
as he called it, in every way. Never to talk loud 
or shout, never under any circumstances to talk 
in a carriage or car while it was in motion, and 
many other directions. 

Clothes were becoming difficult. You could 
buy nothing, and it was much colder up here than 
with us on the coast. We needed cloaks, both 
Jane and I. So mamma had Maum 'Venia make 
for us each a coat from the lovely white plains, 
which was bought for the negroes, with pearl but- 
tons taken from some old coats. They were im- 
mensely admired and were so nice and warm. It 
was just like having a coat made out of the white 
part of a very fine, soft blanket, and not the least 
part of the joy of them was that they were very 
becoming. 

It was this winter that my second great friend 
came into my life, Ruth Nesbitt, from Georgia. 
She was the loveliest, sweetest girl, a tall, very 
slender brunette with beautiful brown eyes, and a 
little tiptilted nose and a large but well-formed 
mouth full of exquisite little teeth. She was so 
quiet, so shy, so reserved and stiff. For a long 
[182] 



BOARDING-SCHOOL IN WAR TIMES 

time I could only tell by her eyes that Ruth cared 
for me. I was greatly surprised when I found 
myself devoted to her. I cared for so few and 
was so easily bored. I constantly had girls de- 
voted to me whose advances I barely endured, 
and now to find a perfectly congenial companion 
was too delightful. And to see the color rush 
over her pretty pansy-looking face, and her bright 
brown eyes sparkle as I came near was a joy. 
Travelling was so expensive that we did not go 
home for the Christmas holidays, and Ruth and I 
read Dickens out under the trees every day. One 
sewed while the other read aloud, and it was per- 
fect bliss. 

The news from the war became more and more 
exciting. I had letters nearly every week from 
my cousin, Hal Lesesne, who was captain in the 
army and stationed at Battery Wagner. They 
made me feel I was in the midst of the fighting, 
they were so vivid, although very short. One day 
one came, quite a long letter this time, but only a 
few words legible, the rest soaked with ink. On a 
scrap of paper he wrote: "Just as I finished this a 
shell burst near me and a fragment shattered the 
ink-stand. I send it because I do not know when 
I can write again and you may be able to make 
[183] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

out some of it. Anyway, you will know that I 
have written." I kept all these letters. They 
were such a picture of the life there; and, by a 
strange fate, they were stolen in 1870. It was a 
great regret to me, for he was killed almost with 
the last shot which was fired during the war. I 
was very fond of him. He was not a lover, only 
a dear friend and cousin; and, besides that feeling, 
the letters were history by that time, telling of 
the heroic defense of Batteries Wagner and Gregg 
and the other fortifications on Morris Island. 



[184] 



PART IV 
WAR TIMES 



CHAPTER XVI 
THE WEDDING 

I LEFT school on my birthday, May 29, 1863, 
and returned to my home in Charleston. 
There great activity and excitement reigned, 
for my sister was to be married June 24 and I 
was to be first bridesmaid. The wedding was 
very beautiful. To begin with, Delia was lovely 
beyond words, an ideal picture of a bride, and the 
groom, Arnoldus Van der Horst, was a handsome 
and martial figure in his uniform, that of a major 
of the Confederate army. They were married by 
the assistant rector of St. Michael's Church, the 
Reverend Mr. Elliot, in our beautiful oval drawing- 
room or ballroom. It had a very high ceiHng and 
was papered in white with small sprigs of golden 
flowers scattered over it. There were four large 
windows on the south, opening on the iron bal- 
cony which ran round on the outside. And, on 
the opposite side of the room, two windows ex- 
actly like those opening on the balcony, running 
from the tall ceiling to the floor, but the panes of 
these were mirrors. It made you think you were 
looking into another crowded room. There was 
[187] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

a high mantelpiece of white wood carved with 
exquisite figures of women dancing and holding 
aloft garlands of flowers, Adam's most beautiful 
designs; the cornice around the ceiling was also 
beautiful; the furniture was rosewood, covered 
with blue velvet with little pink rosebuds, and 
the carpet was velvet with bouquets of pink roses 
tied with blue ribbons. The first groomsman, 
Lewis Van der Horst, brother of the groom, was 
also in uniform, that of a private in the Charles- 
ton Light Dragoons, C, S. A. He was killed the 
following spring in Virginia, fighting gallantly. 

I have a foolish little journal I wrote at this 
time, so foolish and lacking in all interest, that I 
do not use it, but think perhaps this little excerpt 
may be pardoned: 

"Charleston, June 27th, 1863. 

"Delia is married ! ! 

"It all seems Hke a dream; all the excitement is 
over, and now for the first time I can think over 
it calmly. Wednesday at nine the wedding took 
place. It was a very beautiful ceremony. She 
was perfectly lovely. Her costume was a full 
plain dress of Brussel's net, a beautiful material, 
over a splendid white silk, with a beautiful real 
lace veil falling almost to the ground; a wreathe 
of white hyacinths and bouquet of the same. 
[188] 




ad£le allston at sixteen. 

Afterward Mrs. Arnoldus V'aiider Horst. 



THE WEDDING 



Such was her costume, but her appearance I can- 
not describe !" 

This diary is a help as to dates, and it records 
that on July lo, at daybreak, the shelHng of 
Charleston began, and records also the hasty 
packing up of the household gods and family im- 
pedimenta, and their removal from the city; also 
our arrival at the station at Society Hill, Darling- 
ton County, that night at twelve. There had 
been no time to send orders for Daddy Aleck and 
the carriage to meet us, but the wonderfully kind 
neighbors whom we were to find there gave their 
evidences of generous friendship that night; for 
John Williams happened to be there and offered 
his carriage and so did Doctor Smith, so that we 
got to Crowley Hill with little delay. This was 
to be our place of refuge during the war, while the 
plantations on the coast were regarded as unsafe. 

Before we left the city there comes to my mind 
a very vivid picture of a visit paid by another 
member of the Charleston Light Dragoons, also a 
private. He was at home on a short furlough 
and called to pay his respects to my mother, and 
she sent for me to see him also. It was in the 
same beautiful oval drawing-room. Mamma was 
seated on the little sofa in front of one of the mir- 
ror windows, and when I entered the room, on a 
[189] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

chair facing her and talking with great animation 
sat Poinsett Pringle, whom I had never seen be- 
fore, the almost twin brother of my future hus- 
band. Introductions were made, and I sat down 
and listened and looked, and looked and listened. 
Efforts were made both by himself and by mamma 
to draw me into the conversation, but in vain. 
When he had gone mamma said to me: 

"Well, Bessie, if this is the way you are going 
to behave, you certainly will not be a success in 
society ! You sat there with your mouth wide 
open, gazing at the young man ! What was the 
matter .^" 

I said solemnly: "Mamma, he was so beautiful 
that I was paralyzed ! I never saw any one so 
beautiful in my life." 

And it was true. He was angelically beautiful; 
light-brown hair parted in the middle, with a curl 
in it, short as it was; wonderful blue eyes that 
looked like windows to a beautiful soul, fair, 
smooth skin, perfect teeth, and a dimple in his 
smooth chin — add to this very beautiful hands 
and the sweetest voice, and no one will wonder 
that my breath had been taken away by the sight 
of him. He was the darling and pride of his 
whole family. His mother had him educated for 
[ 190] 



THE WEDDING 



the diplomatic service. He was a most accom- 
plished musician, playing beautifully on the piano, 
and had a charming voice. I never saw him again. 
All this charm and beauty of mind and body was 
snuffed out by a bullet the following May. I 
think it was the battle of Haws Shop in Virginia, 
which the Confederates lost, and had to give up 
the field. Poinsett was going out unhurt when 
he saw his friend Bee lying wounded. Poinsett 
picked him up and carried him some distance 
toward the rear, when a bullet struck, killing them 
both. If I could paint, how I would love to per- 
petuate that beautiful face and figure. 

It was a terrible undertaking to pack all that 
big, heavy furniture and get it away under stress. 
We found afterward that we had left many things 
of great value. At this moment I remember espe- 
cially two blue china Chinese vases, urn-shaped, 
which stood two feet high and were very heavy. 
It seemed impossible to get boxes and mate- 
rial to pack them and they were left. Daddy 
Moses remained alone to take charge of the house 
and garden. 



[191] 



CHAPTER XVII 

CROWLEY HILL — OUR PLACE OF REFUGE 
DURING THE WAR 

CROWLEY HILL, the place to which we 
went, was a quaint old-fashioned house 
set in a great grove of oak-trees, not the 
big live oaks we were accustomed to, but Spanish 
oaks and red oaks and scrub oaks, which are beau- 
tiful in summer and brilliant-colored in autumn, 
but bare all winter. There was quite a little farm 
land attached, and the place had been lent papa 
by the widow of his dear friend, Nicholas Wil- 
liams. Nicholas Williams, like my uncle, James 
L. Petigru, was opposed to secession, and when he 
found himself powerless to influence his State, he 
determined to leave it and live abroad — but it 
killed him. He died in New York before saiHng. 
It is impossible to tell the kindness we received 
from these friends all the time we were refugees in 
their midst. Of course we were much cut off from 
our supplies; until mamma had a garden planted 
and our dairy was got going we were stranded; 
but every day came servants bringing supplies of 
every kind, milk, cream, vegetables, fruit, flowers, 
[ 192] 



CROWLEY HILL 



everything we did not have. At last I said one 
day to mamma: 

"I cannot stand this. I hate to receive ! I am 
accustomed to give, and so are you ! I don't see 
how you stand it, saying 'Thank you' all the 
time. 

Mamma laughed and said: "My child, you are 
not worthy to give if you cannot receive grace- 
fully. It shows that you think too much of your 
power to give, and it makes you feel superior ! I 
love to give and am thankful for the many years 
I have been able to help my neighbors and others 
in that way; and now I receive with pleasure these 
evidences of the affection and interest of my dear 
generous friends." 

But never did I get over the feeling of impa- 
tience at the necessity of receiving those daily 
trays and baskets of delicious things. Our house- 
hold consisted only of mamma, my little sister, and 
myself, for papa remained at his work on the 
plantation, only coming now and then for a few 
days; and Charley having left the country school, 
Mr. Porcher's, to which he had gone at nine, and 
where he had endured much hardship from the 
scarcity of food the year we were at Barhamville, 
having lived for months on nothing but squash 
[ 193 ] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

and hominy, had now gone to the Arsenal, the 
miHtary school in Columbia. We had the full 
force of servants, except that William was in the 
army with my brother, who was serving as colonel 
of the 4th Alabama Regiment in Virginia, and 
Stephen, who was on the plantation with papa. 
Mamma at once began to plant the farm and gar- 
den, with the house-servants, and made wonderful 
crops. 

I went for a month to visit my sister in Wil- 
mington, Major Van der Horst being on General 
Whiting's staff, stationed at Wilmington. Mr. 
McCrea had lent them his beautiful and conve- 
nient house, so that my sister was delightfully 
situated there, and the society was very gay. 
The first party I went to I made a great mistake. 
A very handsome man, young De Rosset, asked 
me to dance as soon as he was introduced. I ac- 
cepted with pleasure, as I was devoted to dancing. 
As we stood preparatory to the start, he asked: 
"Do you dance fast or loose?" I was confused 
and stammered out, "Oh, I made a mistake. I 
do not dance at all !" and sat down. I could not 
bear to say "fast" nor could I bear to say "loose"; 
but, as I looked at the dancers, I understood what 
it meant, and there was nothing to terrify me in 
[194] 



CROWLEY HILL 



it. One-half of the dancers held hands crossed, 
as you do in skating. This was "loose," and the 
rest danced in the ordinary way which I had al- 
ways been accustomed to; this was called "fast." 
This marred my pleasure in the many parties I 
went to while in Wilmington; for, once having 
said I didn't dance, I had to stick to it. 

The price of every article of clothing was enor- 
mous, and shoes were impossible. I thought of 
buying a pair of stays, but a very common pair 
were fifty dollars, so I ripped up some old Paris 
ones and made a beautiful pair for myself, using 
all the bones, etc. Mamma wrote me to get three 
yards of material to make a coat to wear next 
winter. It was ninety-five dollars a yard, the 
only stuff I could get, thick and hairy, but not fine 
at all. 

At Society Hill, when I returned, the loom was 
set up in the wash-kitchen, and I learned to weave 
as well as to spin, and we knit, knit, knit all the 
time. We had one of the maids to spin a fine 
yarn of cotton and silk ravellings, with which we 
knit gloves for our own use. All pieces of old 
black silk were cut into small scraps and ravelled 
out and carefully mixed with the cotton, and 
made a very pretty gray for gloves. We had only 
[195] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

one caddy of tea, which was kept for sickness, and 
a very little coffee. As a substitute, people used 
bits of dried sweet potato parched, and Indian 
corn parched, also the seed of the okra; this made 
a very rich drink, very full of oil. The root of the 
sassafras made a very nice tea. Sugar was very 
scarce, so mamma planted sorghum, a kind of 
sugar-cane which made very nice molasses, which 
Nelson boiled in the big copper kettle. I made de- 
licious preserves with honey, and we dried figs, and 
mamma made all the vinegar we used with the fig- 
skins, put in a cask and fermented. This winter 
there was trouble about the supplies for the negroes. 
There were no blankets to be had, and papa wrote, 
begging mamma to have the carpets cut up into 
blanket sizes, so that those who were expecting 
blankets that year should not be disappointed. 
The thick damask curtains were cut up for coats, 
as they made good coats, thickly lined. Alto- 
gether there was so much to do that the days were 
not long enough. 

One day we had a visit from Julius Pringle, who 

was on furlough at the house of an uncle, who was 

refugeeing about four miles away. This was only 

the second time I saw him. Mamma and he did all 

[196] 



CROWLEY HILL 



the talking, while I sewed in silence. Mamma 
went out of the room to order some cake and 
wine, and he told me he didn't know the way 
to Crowley, and had come to a place where four 
roads crossed, and was puzzling how to decide 
which road to take "when I saw a track of a tiny 
foot leading this way, and I followed that and I 
knew it would bring me to you." This made me 
very angry indeed, and I got red and lost the use of 
my quick tongue. When mamma came back the 
talk flowed on as easily and pleasantly as possible. 
She told him what a fine crop of rye she had made 
in her calf pasture, and what difficulty she had to 
find a place to put it until she thought of the big 
piano box, which had helped very much, for it 
held so much. All this time I sewed in silence, 
with flaming face. At last he asked me to play. 
I declined fiercely, but mamma said: *'My dear 
Bessie! Of course you will play for us" — she 
being quite shocked at my manner. I went to 
the piano and played as though I were fighting 
the Yankees. When I returned to my seat Mr. 
Pringle thanked me, and, turning to my mother, 
said : 

"Mrs. Allston, apparently the piano box is of 
[197] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

more use than the piano !" And then they both 
laughed heartily. 

I could have killed him without hesitation. I 
saw him at church after that, only a moment. 
And then the day he was to leave to go back to 
Virginia, mamma wanted to ask him to take a let- 
ter, and we drove to the station. And when he 
shook hands with me and said good-by, the look 
in his eye was a revelation and declaration of de- 
votion that seemed to compass me and seal me as 
forever his, near or far, with my own will or with- 
out it. From that moment I knew that no other 
man could be anything to me. It was so strange 
that in absolute silence, with not a second's pro- 
longing of the hand-pressure necessary to say a 
proper, conventional good-by, my whole life was 
altered; for up to that moment I had no idea that 
he was devoted to me. 

I had always longed to take part in the work 
going on everywhere for our soldiers. In our lit- 
tle isolated corner we could do nothing but sew- 
ing and knitting. Soldiers' shirts made by an ex- 
traordinarily easy pattern which some one had 
invented we made in quantities. All the ladies in 
Columbia were cooking and meeting the soldier 
trains day and night, and feeding them and ask- 
[198] 



CROWLEY HILL 



ing what they needed and supplying their wants. 
They took it by turns, so that no hour of the day 
or night could a train come and find no one to 
give them hot coffee and biscuits and sandwiches, 
and sometimes fried chicken, too. 



[199] 



CHAPTER XVIII 
SORROW 

WHEN the spring came papa made us a 
little longer visit than usual. He was 
not feeling well, his heart was giving 
him trouble. I only knew this afterward from 
mamma, for papa never complained. I remember 
from my early childhood looking on in wonder at 
the self-denial he exercised, not once or twice, but 
all the time. His digestion was weak, and day 
after day, when we had such delicious things, 
shrimp, fish, and rice-birds, and coots, and green 
corn, and lima beans, I saw him dine on a plate 
of milk-and-rice, or a plate of soup with all the 
delicious okra and tomatoes and beans strained 
out. But he never talked of it, nor did it make 
him cross. He was specially tender and gentle to 
us all this time. One day he asked me to do 
something and I answered: 

"Papa, I don't know how, I can't do it." 

And he laid his hand on my shoulder and said: 

"Don't ever say that, my daughter. God has 

given it to you that whenever you put your whole 

self to accomplish anything you will succeed. 

[ 200 ] 



SORROW 



When you fail it will be because you have not 
tried hard enough. Don't forget this; it is a great 
responsibility. Never say again you cannot do a 
thing !" He spoke so solemnly that I was greatly 
impressed; and, many times in my life when things 
have risen up before me which have seemed quite 
beyond my strength and capacity and endurance, 
I have remembered that conversation and gone 
ahead, only to find that he was right. 

When papa said he must go back to the planta- 
tion, mamma thought it a great risk, as he was so 
far from strong. She urged him to take another 
week's rest; but he said he must go; there was to 
be a meeting in Georgetown to determine some- 
thing about the public schools, and he must be 
there. He would take two days on the drive 
through the country home, and rest two days be- 
fore the meeting, for it was most important. He 
left us March i8, Friday, promising to return to 
us the next Sunday week. 

About a week after he left, early in the morning, 
a messenger came up on horseback with a note 
from Mr. Belflowers. He thought it his duty to 
let mamma know that he thought papa an ill man. 
He had attended a meeting in Georgetown in very 
inclement weather, when he was so far from well 
[201 ] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

that he had a mattress put in the carryall, and 
lay on that instead of going in the carriage. He 
was afraid "the governor," as he continued to 
call papa, would not like it if he knew he was 
writing this, but he had to do it. Mamma ordered 
the carriage at once and we prepared to start on 
the journey. By the mail which came in just be- 
fore we started, a letter came from papa to her, 
saying he had taken a bad cold and wished very 
much he could come back and put himself under 
her care. That was so much for him to admit 
that she felt she could name the letter as the cause 
of her coming and not betray Mr. Belflowers. It 
was dreadful to have no quicker means of going. 
We started at nine o'clock; that night we spent at 
Mrs. Fryer's, about half-way. The next morning 
we started by dawn, met a fresh pair of horses, 
Mr. Belflowers sent to meet us at Union Church, 
and reached Chicora about five in the afternoon. 
When we got to Chicora we found papa very 
ill. He had pneumonia. He was very happy to 
see us and did not inquire why we came. It 
seemed quite natural to him that we did come. 
Doctor Sparkman, the same who had saved his 
life at The Meadows when they were both young, 
was in attendance and was perfectly devoted. 
[ 202 ] 



SORROW 



Stephen was in constant attendance and very effi- 
cient, also a very faithful man named John Locust, 
sent by my cousin, William Allan Allston, over 
from Waccamaw. As soon as I came I was estab- 
lished in the position of head nurse, for I had al- 
ways had a turn for nursing and at school had 
nursed all the sick girls and got the nickname of 
Miss Nightingale. I was truly thankful for my 
experience now, for I was able to be a comfort to 
papa and a help to everybody, specially mamma, 
who was completely unnerved by seeing papa so 
desperately ill. The doctor had told us he had 
little hope, but I was full of confidence that he 
would get well. I was very happy to find papa's 
comfort in my nursing. I could see his eyes fol- 
low me as I moved about the room, and one day 
as I brought him his cup of gruel he said, "Daugh- 
ter, that is a pretty dress; it pleases me" — and 
he held the fold of the skirt in his fingers as he 
reluctantly swallowed the gruel which I gave him 
by the teaspoonful. His breathing was so labored 
it was hard for him to speak and also to swallow. 
No one can understand the joy his words gave 
me, for I loved him so dearly and it was such a 
deUght to give him pleasure now. I remember 
the frock well. It was a greenish-gray material, 
[203 ] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

something like mohair, with dark-green conven- 
tionaHzed leaves here and there over it; an old 
dress Delia had given me when she got new things 
for her trousseau. I had had it washed and made 
it over myself. I kept it just to look at for years 
and years. 

The neighbors helped. Mr. Josh La Bruce 
came over from Sandy Island in his boat and sat 
up one night, and was a great help, he was so 
quiet and so strong in lifting. Then one night Mr. 
Weston came and sat up and Mr. Belflowers sat 
up one night. Then Mr. La Bruce came again. 
Papa suffered terribly from the difficulty of breath- 
ing and the want of sleep was dreadful. He could 
not sleep. He would repeat in a low voice, "He 
giveth his beloved sleep"; then, "I am not be- 
loved!" I would sing a hymn in a low voice 
sometimes, which seemed to soothe him and made 
him doze a little. 

One day he called for Mr. Belflowers, saying he 
wanted to see him alone, and every one went out, 
and it must have been nearly an hour before Mr. 
Belflowers came out. Papa asked me to read to 
him from the Bible, and that always seemed a 
comfort to him. The 14th chapter of St. John 
was what he asked for most often: "Let not your 
[204] 



SORROW 



heart be troubled." One day I was reading it to 
him when his niece, Mrs. Weston, came in, and 
I asked her to read it, and she took the Bible from 
me and read so beautifully. I saw at once how 
it comforted him, so slowly, so quietly, so dis- 
tinctly, so impersonally. It might have been the 
blessed Saviour himself uttering those great words 
of comfort and promise to his disciples. The 
mind of a suffering, dying person acts slowly. If 
you hurry the words they cannot follow them 
without painful effort. When Cousin Lizzie got 
to the end of the chapter papa gasped out, "Go on, 
Elizabeth," and she went slowly on a long time. 

The breathing became more and more terrible 
every hour, such a struggle that I could not en- 
dure to see it and be helpless to aid in any way. 
I would kneel beside the bed and take his hand 
and he would press mine in a grip which showed 
his pain, and at last as I knelt there I gave him 
up and prayed God to relieve him from his agony. 
Poor mamma could scarcely stay in the room, it was 
such an agony to her. She came in and knelt be- 
side him and held his hand, and then she had to 
go out. But at last we all felt the end was at 
hand, and knelt beside the bed, praying for him 
with all our being, when he lifted his right hand 
[205] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

with a powerful sweep and said in a strong voice: 
"Lord, let me pass!" And it was all over in a 
few seconds, with no struggle or distress. It was 
peace after the awful storm, and we felt he was 
safely in the haven. 

I had not slept for days and nights and went 
into the next room and fell into a deep sleep for 
an hour. When I woke I went into papa's room. 
The big bed had been moved out, and there he 
lay on the little single mahogany bed,* looking 
oh so peaceful and so beautiful; all the lines of 
care and anxiety gone and a look of youth and 
calm strength in his face. Oh, the comfort of 
that look. Mamma was sitting there, quite self- 
controlled and calm. I called her outside, for we 
had to make all the arrangements and give all the 
directions. 

In the country there are no officials trained to 
take charge of things, and I suggested that we 
have Mr. Belflowers come and give him necessary 
directions. He was waiting down-stairs, and 
came up at once. Mamma began to tell him what 
she thought he had better do, but faltered and 
said: "I really don't know what directions to 
give ! 

* I always sleep on that bed myself now. 
[206] 



SORROW 



He said: "There is no need for you to give any 
or to think about it, Mrs. Allston. The governor 
called me in three days ago and gave me every 
direction. He had it all in his mind, but his 
speech was so cut short by his breath that it took 
a good while for him to tell me. He told me 
what carpenters must make the coffin, where the 
specially selected and seasoned wood was; what 
negro was to drive the wagon which carried him 
and which horses; what horses to go in your car- 
riage, with Aleck driving; who was to carry the 
invitation to the funeral, and with what horses on 
this side of the river, and to Georgetown, and 
what man was to take the boat and take it to 
Waccamaw. He said he wanted to be laid in the 
graveyard of Prince Frederick's church, as it was 
so near, and it would give too much trouble to be 
taken to Georgetown, and that after the war was 
over he could be moved to the family enclosure in 
Georgetown. And, ma'am, I have already given 
all the orders, just as he told me." 

It is impossible to give any idea of the immense 
relief this was to mamma and to me. It just seemed 
a horror to see after all the sordid, terrible details. 
Papa had told John Locust and Stephen just how 
to arrange and dress and lay him out, so John had 
[207] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

asked mamma to leave the room when the spirit 
had fled, and called her back when it was all done. 
The day before the end mamma had wanted to ask 
him some questions as to what she should do, etc. 
She broke down and said: "What can I ever do 
without you ."^ Tell me what to do !" He pressed 
her hand and said: "The Lord will provide; have 
no fear." He could not direct her as to anything 
ahead in those troublous, changing times, but he 
could see that she was spared all trouble at the 
last, and we both felt it was the most touching 
and wonderful proof of his devotion even in the 
agony of death. 

He was laid to rest in the churchyard of Prince 
Frederick's, just a mile away, where the beautiful 
half-finished brick church in whose building he 
had been so much interested, stood, a monument 
to war. All the trimmings and furnishings had 
been ordered in England, and, in running the 
blockade, they had been sunk. The architect, 
whose name was Gunn, had died, and was buried 
near the church, and the roofless but beautiful 
building stood there forlorn. There we laid him, 
with all the beauty of the wild spring flowers and 
growth he so loved around him, nearly under a 
big dogwood-tree in all its white glory. Crying 
[208] 



SORROW 



and lamentation of the negroes who flocked along 
the road behind the wagon which carried papa, 
and filled the large graveyard, standing at a little 
distance behind the family, according to their rank 
and station on the plantation. Those who dug 
the grave had been specially named by papa, and 
it was considered a great honor. My dear father, 
if love could avail, when he reached those gates of 
pearl, they would fly open at his approach, for he 
carried the love and devotion of many people of 
all colors and classes. 

As soon as possible my uncle, Chancellor Lesesne, 
arrived and opened and read the will. Mamma 
was named executrix and Chancellor Henry D. 
Lesesne executor. The house in Charleston and 
all the furniture were left to mamma, with all 
the house-servants and their families, and what 
carriages and horses she wanted, and a sum of 
money. To each of us five children a plantation 
and negroes, one hundred each. They were all 
named for each one. Charley was to have Chicora 
Wood, where we had always lived, and all the 
negroes who lived there. Brother Guendalos, 
the plantation adjoining on the south; Jane, 
Ditchfield, the plantation adjoining Chicora on 
the north; and to me was left Exchange, the plan- 
[209] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

tation just north of that. To my sister Adele, 
Waterford, a plantation on the Waccamaw, very- 
valuable, and which would sell well; and Nightin- 
gale Hall, which was considered the place which 
would sell best, as it was at the pitch of tide most 
considered, being subject neither to freshet from 
above nor salt from the ocean below, was to be 
sold for the benefit of the heirs. 

Then came an immense deal of writing and 
work for me. My brothers not being available 
nor any clerical outside help, I did all the writing 
and copying of the will to be sent round to the 
different heirs, and the lists of negroes, cattle, 
farm implements, and personal property, and 
helped Uncle Henry in every way. I have by 
me now the list of 600 negroes. 

It was a great relief to have the work to do, for 
more and more as the days went on and the sense 
of thankfulness for his relief from suffering grew 
fainter, the sense of terrible desolation and sorrow 
possessed me. Papa was the only person in the 
world in whom I had absolute faith and confi- 
dence. I had never seen him show a trace of 
weakness or indecision. I had never seen him un- 
just or hasty in his judgment of a person. I had 
watched him closely and yet I had never seen him 
give way to temper or irritation, though I had 
[210] 



SORROW 



seen him greatly tried. Never a sign of self-in- 
dulgence, or indolence, or selfishness. It was my 
misfortune to see people's weaknesses with un- 
canny clearness, and my mother often rebuked me 
for being censorious and severe in my judgments 
of all around me; but never had I seen a thing in 
my father which I would criticise or wish to 
change. Only, I often wished he would talk more; 
but when I once said that very shyly to him, he 
laughed and said: "Child, when I have something 
to say I say it, and it seems to me that is a good 
plan." 

We returned to Society Hill in May, mamma and 
I driving up in the carriage as we had gone down; 
but oh, how different the whole world was to us ! 
The beauty of nature on the way, the woods in all 
the glory of their fresh leafage, the wild flowers, the 
birds, the gorgeous sunshine — all, all seemed a 
mockery. Our life was to be a gray, dull drab 
always. We stopped a night on the way up with 
kind, devoted friends. General Harllee and his 
charming wife, in their beautiful home, with a 
wonderful flower-garden. There was no power 
left in me to admire even, much less to enjoy. I 
had always been the most enthusiastic person in 
the world, too much so for polite standards. Now 
it was all gone. I was just a very thin, under- 

[211] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

sized, plain, commonplace young person, ready to 
do anything I was told, but without one spark of 
initiative. Mamma was crushed not only by her 
grief but by the feeling that she was utterly in- 
adequate to the task before her, that of looking 
after and providing for over 600 negroes in this 
time of war and stress, of seeing that the proper 
supplies of food were at the different points where 
they were needed. 

Mamma had never had the least planning about 
supplies, beyond buying her own groceries. The 
supplies of rice, grist, potatoes, everything, had 
been brought to her storeroom door regularly once 
a week, calling for no thought on her part. Now 
suddenly she had to plan and arrange for the 100 
people on the farms in North Carolina, as well as 
for the 500 down on the plantations. It was per- 
fectly wonderful to see how she rose to the require- 
ments of the moment, and how strong and level 
her mind was. In a Httle while she had grasped 
the full extent of the situation, and was perfectly 
equal to her new position. 



[212] 



CHAPTER XIX 
LOCH ad£:le 

SOON after we returned to Crowley Hill she 
determined to go to the North Carolina 
farms and see the people, so as to reassure 
them as to her taking care of them fully. 

We started very early in the morning, Daddy 
Aleck driving, with baskets packed with lunch 
for the day and provisions to cook, for we ex- 
pected to stay three or four days. The drive of 
thirty miles was charming until it got too hot, 
and we stopped under a tree by a spring, took out 
the horses and tied them in the shade and had 
our lunch, and rested until it became a little cooler. 
Loch Adele, as we girls had named the farm, was a 
very pretty place with a mill and large pond, which 
we dignified into a loch, much to papa's amuse- 
ment. A pretty rolling country, and the Pee Dee 
River, called the Yadkin as soon as it passed the 
line from South to North CaroHna, ran a small 
rocky stream about a mile from the rambUng 
farmhouse. Flats had brought suppHes in large 
quantities up the river from Chicora, and most of 
[213 ] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

the Charleston furniture had been brought by rail 
to Cheraw, fifteen miles away, and hauled out to 
this place, so that the house was thoroughly fur- 
nished, pictures hanging on the walls, because it 
seemed better than to keep them packed. The 
two lovely bas-reliefs of Thorwaldsen's, "Night" 
and "Morning," looked especially beautiful hang- 
ing on the white walls of the drawing-room, and 
the whole place was homelike and delightful with 
our Charleston belongings. And the poor negroes 
were so glad to see us and to realize that "Miss" 
was going to look after them and to the best of 
her ability take "Maussa's" place. They wanted 
to hear all about papa's illness and death and the 
funeral, and who had been honored by taking spe- 
cial place in it. Mamma was interviewed by each 
one separately, and had to repeat all the details 
over and over. She was very patient, to my great 
surprise, and, I think, to the people's, too, for she 
had never been as willing to listen to their long 
rigmaroles as papa had been. But now she Hs- 
tened to all and consoled them and wept with 
them over their mutual loss. Altogether the visit 
did us both good. 

Old Daddy Hamedy, who was head man on the 
place, had been a first-class carpenter and still 
[214] 



LOCH AD£LE 



was, but when there was needed some one to take 
supervision of the farm and people up there, papa 
chose him on account of his character and intelH- 
gence. Papa had engaged a white man, a Mr. 
Yates, who lived some miles away, to give an eye 
to the place from time to time and write him how 
things went on, and Hamedy was to apply to Mr. 
Yates if anything went wrong. He was originally 
from the North, but he had bought a farm near 
the little town of Morven some years before, and 
Hved here ever since. Mamma sent to ask Mr. 
Yates to come and see her, and he came. He was 
a very smart man, but impressed me most un- 
pleasantly as unreUable and unscrupulous, as I 
watched him talking to mamma. He evidently felt 
that, papa being gone, his time had come, and 
was quite sure he could manage my mother easily. 
He was most flattering in his admiration, which 
was not surprising, for my mother was beautiful 
in her plain black frock and widow's cap. 

In trying to make easy conversation as he sat 
and talked to us, he asked: "Miss AUston, do you 
smoke ?" 

In some surprise my mother answered: "No, I 
have never smoked." 

"Well, well," he said. "You wouldn't find 
[215] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

another lady of your age in this country that 
didn't smoke." 

This nearly upset my gravity, for the idea of 
my mother's smoking was too much for me, and I 
went out down to the mill-pond. Into this lake 
my father had had foiled many hogsheads packed 
securely with bottles of old Madeira wine, as being 
the best chance of saving them from the Yankees. 
They were certainly not safe at Chicora Wood, 
only about twenty miles from the mouth of Win- 
yah Bay, when gunboats could run up from the sea 
so easily. So the wine was packed and shipped 
by his flats in charge of faithful men. I remem- 
ber when the flats were going, on one occasion, 
papa wanted to send up a very beautiful marble 
group of "The Prodigal Son," which was always 
in the drawing-room at Chicora, and he called in 
Joe Washington, who was to take charge of the 
flat, to look at it, and told him that he would 
have it carefully packed by the carpenter, and he 
wanted him to be specially careful of it; where- 
upon Joe said: 

"Please, sir, don't have it pack. I'll tek good 
kere of it, but please lef it so en I kin look at it en 
enjoy it. I'll neber let nuthin' hut it." 

So papa acceded and did not have it packed, 
[216] 



LOCH ADELE 



and on that open flat, amid barrels and boxes and 
propelled by oars and poles, only a little shed at 
one end under which the eight hands could take 
shelter in case of rain, "The Prodigal Son" and 
the happy father made their journey of 300 miles 
in perfect safety. And I may say here the group 
was brought back when the war was over, and 
now rests in the old place in the drawing-room at 
Chicora Wood. How it escaped Sherman I do 
not know; some one must have hid it in the woods. 



[217] 



CHAPTER XX 
SHADOWS 

I INSERT here an extract from my diary: 
"Croley Hill, Sunday July 19th, 1864. 
Just as we were leaving for Church the paper 
came and there in it was the dreadful intelligence 
that my cousin Gen'l Johnston Pettigrew, who 
was wounded on the 17th had died of his wounds. 
It is too dreadful ! If I could I would hope that 
this, like the first might be a false report, but 
something tells me it is true. . . . Next to Uncle 
(James L. Petigru) he was the light of the family, 
so clever, so learned, so noble; and how I have 
almost adored him in his nobleness and wisdom; 
how I have sat and listened to Uncle and himself 
talking until I thought nothing could ever be as 
brilliant and pleasant as that; but now both have 
gone and we shall never see their equals again. 
... I am glad I have Cousin Johnston's beauti- 
ful book 'Spain and the Spaniards' which he gave 
me. We heard he was wounded at Gettysburg 
but his name was not mentioned among the gen- 
erals and never since, so we supposed it was a 
[218] 



SHADOWS 



mistake, and Now . . ." This was a terrible blow 
and distress. After this, sad news kept coming 
in of reverses, and things looked dark. The hos- 
pitals were in great need of stimulants and mamma 
determined to send the rye she had made to the 
still about twenty miles away and have it made 
into whiskey. Daddy Aleck took it and told of 
the dangers he had encountered on the way, so 
that when it was finished, he was afraid to go for 
it alone, and mamma told Jinty and me we must 
ride along with him. 

About this time my cousin, Captain Phil 
Porcher, of the navy, went out on a little vessel, 
the JunOy which had been built in Charleston har- 
bor to run the blockade, and nothing was ever 
heard of him or of any of the crew or officers. 
Weeks passed into months and not a word of the 
fate of the boat. It was terrible for Aunt Louise 
and her daughters. Mamma wrote and begged 
them to come and stay with us, and they came. 
It was dreadful to see their sufferings. My aunt 
was a beautiful and heroic figure. They would 
not act as though they had heard of his death, for 
each day there was the hope that when the paper 
came there would be some news of him. They 
tried so hard to be cheerful and hope against hope. 
[219] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

But no news ever did come. It remains one of 
the mysteries of the deep.* 

Phil Porcher was a gallant, charming, and ex- 
emplary man, and the greatest loss to the whole 
family and to the country. 

* Since writing this my esteemed friend, Professor Yates Snowden, 

has given me an interesting account of an interview with Mr. B , 

a pilot of Charleston, who was one of two men who were picked up 
on the coast of Georgia, survivors of the Juno. They had spent 
days on a chicken-coop in the terrible storm which wrecked the over- 
loaded little boat. 



[ 220 ] 



CHAPTER XXI 
PREPARING TO MEET SHERMAN 

ik FTER my aunt and cousins left we began 
/"^ to bury every treasure we had. All the 
silver which had not been sent to Mor- 
ven was packed in a wooden chest, and Mr. Wil- 
liam Evans, our nearest neighbor, came one day 
in his wagon to take it as, it was supposed, to the 
station to send it away by the railroad. Nelson 
went with him, and they drove by a winding 
route into some very thick woods near, and Nelson 
dug a deep hole and the two of them lowered it in 
with ropes, filled the grave, and marked the spot. 
That was one weight off of our minds. We kept 
just enough for daily use. I became an expert in 
burying. Three sheets were a necessity; one to 
put the top earth on, with moss and leaves and 
everything to look natural, then one to put the 
second colored earth near the surface, and one to 
put every grain of the yellow clay below, one little 
pellet of which would tell the tale that a hole had 
been dug. 

Charley came home for a few days on his way 

[221 ] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

to Virginia, the boys at the Arsenal having been 
called out. He was just sixteen, and it was pitiful 
to see him weighed down by his knapsack and all 
the heavy things he had to march with, for he 
was very thin and gaunt. Mamma consulted him 
as to what to do with the old Madeira, of which 
she still had a good deal packed in barrels in the 
storeroom. He consulted Nelson, and they agreed 
to pack it in the big piano box, which was still 
used as a grain bin. So the piano box was cleared 
out and emptied, and brought into the little front 
porch, which it nearly filled, as there had been a 
room cut off from each end of the porch, which 
originally ran the length of the house, and this 
left this porch with steps all the way along down 
to the ground, only about five steps. Here they 
brought hay and we all helped bring the bottles 
of wine up quietly from the storeroom, and Nel- 
son, who was an expert, packed them beautifully. 
It was done so quietly that the servants in the 
yard knew nothing of it. We all went to bed at 
the usual hour, but at twelve o'clock Charley and 
Nelson got up, having provided ropes, spades, 
and everything necessary in one of the shed-rooms, 
which Charley occupied, also two pieces of round 
oak as rollers. They dug a hole big enough for 
[ 222 ] 



PREPARING TO MEET SHERMAN 

the piano box, using sheets for the earth, as I have 
described, and how those two accompHshed it is 
a mystery, without help, but they did put that 
huge box into that deep hole, covered it up, re- 
moving the dirt which was too much, and levelled 
the surface, raked the whole front road, and then 
brought the wagon and rolled it back and forth 
over it, making it look natural; so that in the 
morning there was no trace of anything unusual, 
Charley left the next day for Virginia, and oh, 
how miserable we were ! Poor mamma, he was her 
special darling, named after her youngest brother, 
who gave his life for his friend so long ago. 

Mamma was kept very busy, sending supplies in 
different directions, and having cloth spun and 
woven. She sent demijohns of whiskey to the 
hospitals and some down to Mr, Belflowers for 
use on the plantation in case of sickness (the 
darkies having a feeling that no woman can be 
safely delivered of a child without a liberal sup- 
ply of whiskey). 

I cannot mark the passage of time exactly, but 
the report came that Sherman was advancing, and 
there came awful rumors of what he was doing 
and would do. We made long homespun bags, 
quite narrow, and with a strong waistband, and 
[223 ] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

a strong button, to be worn under the skirts. And 
into these we put all our treasures. They said 
every photograph was destroyed, after great in- 
dignities. I took all my photos of my dear ones 
(such sights they look now, but then seemed beau- 
tiful). I put them one by one in a basin of clear 
cold water and left them a few minutes, when I 
found I could peal them off of the card; and then 
I pasted them into a little book which I could 
carry in one of my pockets. The book was 
Brother's passport-book when he was travelling 
abroad, and I have it now with all the pictures in 
it. Our kind and generous neighbor, Mrs. Wm. 
Evans, was a very, very thin, tall woman, but 
when I ran over to see her during these days of 
anxiety and she came out into the piazza to meet 
me, I could not believe my eyes. She seemed to 
be an enormously stout woman ! I looked so 
startled that she said: 

"My dear Bessie, they say these brutes take 
everything but what you have on and burn it be- 
fore your eyes. So I have bags of supplies, rice 
and wheat flour and sugar and what little coff^ee 
we had, hung round my waist, and then I have on 
all the clothes I can possibly stand, three dresses 
for one item." And then we both laughed until 
[224] 



PREPARING TO MEET SHERMAN 

we nearly fell from exhaustion. And when I ran 
home and told mamma we had another great laugh, 
and oh, it was such a mercy to have a good hearty 
laugh in those days of gloom and anxiety. We 
never quite got to Mrs. Evans's condition, but 
we each had treasures unknown to the others con- 
cealed about us. 

Things in the Confederacy were going worse 
and worse. It was an agony to read the papers. 
My sister, Mrs. Van der Horst, came home from 
Wilmington, bringing her maid, Margaret. Her 
husband did not think it safe for her to stay any 
longer there. It was a great comfort to have her 
with us. The Yankees were reported nearer and 
nearer, but we never saw any one to hear posi- 
tively where they were. Then one evening, just 
at dusk, two horsemen galloped up to the front 
door, tied their horses and came in. They were 
Charleston Light Dragoons acting as scouts for 
General Hampton — Julius Pringle and Tom 
Ferguson. They came to tell us Hampton was 
protecting all our troops as they left the State. 
They were the very last, and Mr. Pringle said to 
mamma: 

"I knew you had wine and whiskey in the house 
and I came to beg you for God's sake to destroy 
[225] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

it all. Do not let a drop be found in the house, I 
implore you." 

Mamma said: "But, Julius, I have not sent all 
that whiskey to the hospitals yet, and it is so 
greatly needed ! I have two demijohns still." 

"Oh, Mrs. Allston, I implore you, do not hesi- 
tate. Have those demijohns broken to pieces the 
first thing to-morrow morning." 

She promised. We gave them a good supper, 
of which they were in great need. Nelson fed the 
horses. They took two hours' sleep and then left 
in the middle of the night. As they were going, 
there were shots heard on the public road which 
ran back of our house about 400 yards. The two 
dragoons jumped on their horses and galloped 
off from the front door into the darkness of the 
night. It was an awful moment. They were 
gone, our last friends and protectors, and the 
agony in Mr. Pringle's face was indescribable. 

We found the next morning that the shots had 
been the forerunners only of the license we had 
to expect. It was negroes shooting our hogs, 
which were fat and tempting. Early the next 
morning mamma called Nelson and Daddy Aleck 
and had them bring the wheelbarrow and put into 
it the demijohns with the precious rye whiskey 

[226 1 



PREPARING TO MEET SHERMAN 

and roll them to a little stream near by, and pour 
it into the water. We went along and it was a 
melancholy procession, and Daddy Aleck secretly 
wept and openly grumbled, as he felt he had risked 
his life for that whiskey. As it was poured into 
the branch by Nelson, who also loved whiskey, 
Daddy Aleck went lower down the stream and 
knelt down and drank as if he were a four-footed 
beast. Then we went back and wondered how 
we could dispose of the two dozen bottles of wine 
still in the storeroom. Papa had once said it 
might prove the most salable thing we had after 
the war. I undertook to conceal them, and, go- 
ing up into the garret, I found the flooring was 
not nailed down, and, lifting one board at a time, 
I laid the bottles softly in, softly because they 
were placed on the ceiling laths and it was an 
old house. But the ceiHng held and the bottles 
were disposed of. 

After having done all he could to help mamma 
that day, Nelson came to her and said: "Miss, I 
want you to give me some provision and let me 
go for a while." 

She exclaimed: "Nelson, you cannot leave us 
when these Yankees are coming ! You must not 
leave us unprotected." 

[ 227 ] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

He said: "Miss, I know too much. Ef dem 
Yankee was to put a pistol to my head and say 
tell what you know or I'll shoot you, I cudn't trust 
meself. I dunno what I mite do ! Le' me go, 
miss." So mamma put up his bag of provisions 
and he went. 

The next day she decided it was best to send 
Daddy Aleck off, as he said if she let him go he 
thought he could take the horses in the swamp 
and save them. So he went, taking the horses 
and a bag of harness and all the saddles. It was 
a brave, clever thing of the old man to carry out. 
But we felt truly desolate when both he and Nel- 
son were gone, and we only had Phibby and Mar- 
garet, Delia's maid, and Nellie, Nelson's wife, and 
little Andrew, who was a kind of little dwarf, a 
very smart and competent, well-trained dining- 
room servant, who looked about fourteen but was 
said to be over twenty. 



[228] 



CHAPTER XXII 
THEY COME ! 

^S everything would be seized by the enemy 
/~% when they came, we Hved very high, and 
the things which had been preciously 
hoarded until the men of the family should come 
home were now eaten. Every day we had a real 
Christmas dinner; all the turkeys and hams were 
used. One day mamma had just helped us all to a 
delicious piece of turkey when Phibby rushed in, 
crying: "Miss, dey cumin!" Bruno, Jane's little 
water-spaniel, began to bark, and she rushed out 
to the wide roofless porch where he was, threw her 
arms round his neck and held his throat so tight 
he couldn't bark, just as a soldier was about to 
strike him with a sword. I was terrified for her 
as she knelt there in the middle of the porch, 
holding him; but they only looked down at her, 
as they rushed by on each side into the house, 
calling out: 

"Whiskey! We want liquor! Don't lie; we 
know you have it ! We want whiskey ! We want 
firearms!" Each one said the same thing. 

Mamma was very calm. As they clamored she 
[229] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

said: "You may search the house. You will find 
none. I had some whiskey, but it is here no 
longer." 

They seemed deHghted at the sight of the din- 
ner-table, and for a time were occupied eating and 
pocketing all that could be pocketed. When the 
renewed cry for wine, whiskey, and firearms came, 
mamma took from the nail where it hung the huge 
storeroom key, and went down the steps to the 
storeroom, just in time to prevent its being 
smashed in with an axe. She opened the door 
and they rushed in with many insulting words. 
Poor Phibby was wild with terror, and followed 
mamma, closely holding on to her skirt and entreat- 
ing her not to go. 

"Miss, dem'll kill yu, fu Gawd sake don' go 
wid dem." But mamma showed no sign of excite- 
ment or alarm and never seemed to hear the 
dreadful things they said. They opened box after 
box in vain, but at last in the box under all the 
rest they came on a bottle and the men shouted: 
"We knew you were lying!" The finder struck 
the head off with one blow, and, putting the bot- 
tle to his mouth, took a long draft. Then there 
was a splutter and choking, and he got rid of it 
as quickly as possible, to the amusement and joy 
[ 230] 



THEY COME! 



of the others, who had envied his find. It was 
our one treasured bottle of oHve-oil, which had 
been put out of reach, to be kept for some great 
occasion. 

Upstairs in her bedroom my sister was having a 
trying time. She unlocked her trunk to prevent 
its being ripped open with a sword, and looked on 
while they ran through it, taking all her jewels 
and everything of value, holding up each garment 
for examination and asking its uses, each one 
being greeted by shouts of laughter. She, having 
recently come, had not concealed or buried any of 
her things. After disposing of her big trunk, they 
turned to a closet, where a man's leather trunk 
was. They asked for the key, and when she said 
she did not have it, they cut it open, and there 
on top lay a sword. Then there were howls of: 
"We knew you were lying. You said you had no 
arms." Delia only answered: "I did not know 
what was in this trunk." It was her brother-in- 
law Lewis Van der Horst's trunk. He had been 
killed fighting gallantly in Virginia, and his trunk 
had been sent home by his friends to his brother 
without the key. 

All this time I was with another party, who 
were searching for liquor, and I followed them 
[231 ] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

into the garret. It was odd how impossible it 
was not to follow them and see what they did. I 
was told afterward that in most places the women 
shut themselves up in a room while they searched 
the house; but, with us, we were irresistibly borne 
to keep up with them and watch them. When I 
heard them tramping over the garret, the loose 
boards rattling, I flew up myself and stood there 
while they opened every box and trunk, taking 
anything of any value, every now and then quar- 
relHng over who should have a thing. I was in 
misery, for the boards seemed to be crying aloud : 
"Take us up and you'll find something. Take us 
up." Whenever they asked me anything I an- 
swered with some quick, sharp speech which 
would intensely amuse any one but the questioner, 
who generally relapsed into sulky silence. They 
seemed to be in great dread of being surprised by 
Hampton's cavalry, whom they spoke of as "the 
devil, for you never knew where he was," so they 
did everything very rapidly. 

All this time there were parties going all over 
the yard, running ramrods into the ground to find 
buried things. My terror about that big box of 
wine was intense as I saw them. They even went 
under the big piazza at the back of the house and 
[232] 



THEY COME! 



rammed every foot of the earth. It was a mar- 
vel that they never thought of coming to the 
front, having come up at the back of the house 
from the pubHc road. They never even opened 
the gate which separated the front yard from the 
back, and so the great piano box was never found. 
Little Andrew we never had felt very sure of, and 
so everything about the burying of things was 
kept from him. As they left, Margaret and Nellie 
came in crying bitterly. They had taken every 
trinket and treasure they had, and all their warm 
clothes. Margaret was specially loud in her de- 
nunciation: 

"I always bin hear dat de Yankees was gwine 
help de nigger ! W'a' kynd a help yu call dis ! 
Tek ebery ting I got in de wurld, my t'ree gold 
broach," etc., etc. Poor Margaret had sometimes 
been supposed to be light-fingered, and she had 
returned from Wilmington with a good deal of 
jewelry, which we wondered about; but now, poor 
soul, it was all gone. For four days the army 
kept passing along that road, and we heard shouts 
and shots and drums beating, and every moment 
expected another visit, but, as I said, they moved 
in haste, always fearing to leave the main road 
and be ambushed by Hampton's ubiquitous scouts. 
[233 ] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

We never went to bed or took off our clothes dur- 
ing that time. We sat fully dressed in the parlor, 
all night through, Phibby always sitting with us 
on the floor near the door, leaning straight up 
against the wall, her legs stretched out in front of 
her, nodding and praying. She was a great com- 
fort. Mamma tried to induce her to go to bed and 
sleep, saying: 

"Phoebe, you have nothing to fear. They 
won't hurt you." 

All her answer was: "Miss, yu tink I gwine lef 
yu fu dem weeked men fu kill, no ma'am, not 
Phibby. I'll stay right here en pertect yu." 

Mamma read calmly. Delia slept on the sofa. 
I scribbled in my journal. I will make a little ex- 
tract here from the little paper book I carried in 
my pocket. It seems very trivial and foolish; 
but here it is: 

"March 8th, 1865. — Twelve o'clock! and 
we still sit whispering around the fire, Phoebe on 
the floor nodding, Delia with her feet extended 
trying to rest on the sofa, and I on a stool scrib- 
bling, scribbling to while away the time till dawn. 
Thank God, one more quiet day, and we so hoped 
for a quiet night, but a little after nine Phoebe 
ran in saying she heard them coming. Oh, the 

[234] 



THEY COME! 



chill and terror that ran through me when I heard 
that; but it proved a false alarm. ... I never 
fully understood terror until now, and yet every 
one says our experience of them is mild. . . . 
They delight in making terrible threats of ven- 
geance and seem to gloat over our misery. Yes- 
terday a captain was here who pretended to be 
all kindness and sympathy over the treatment we 
had received from the foragers. . . . He did not 
enter the house. We placed a chair on the piazza 
and gave him what we had to eat. But when he 
began to talk, he seemed almost worse than any 
other. He vowed never to take a prisoner, said 
he would delight in shooting down a rebel prisoner 
and often did it ! My disgust was intense, but I 
struggled hard to keep cool and succeeded some- 
what. He asked, 'Do you know what you are 
fighting fovV I replied, 'Existence.' He said, 
* We won't let you have it,' with such a grin. . . . 
He said, 'At the beginning of this war, I didn't 
care a cent about a nigger, but I'd rather fight for 
ten years longer than let the South have her inde- 
pendence.' Then, with a chuckle, he said, 'But 
we'll starve you out, not in one place that we have 
visited have we left three meals.' At something 
Delia said he exclaimed, *0h, I know what you 
[235] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

mean, you mean the Almighty, but the Almighty 
has got nothing to do with this war.' Such blas- 
phemy silenced us completely." 

The tales the negroes heard from one another 
were terrific, as to what the Yankees had done, 
and what the negroes had done. We never saw 
any one during this time but those in the yard. 
Little Andrew, whom we never had felt sure of, 
behaved very well. We had thought he would 
probably go off with the Yankees, but whether his 
experience of them had not been such as to make 
him desire a closer knowledge I don't know, but 
certainly no one could have behaved better than 
he did, laying the table with the few forks and 
spoons mamma had managed to hide, and bringing 
in our scanty meals with as much dignity as if 
things were unchanged; and he was a help, though 
he never expressed devotion or the contrary, only 
brought in specially hair-raising stories of the out- 
rages committed on every side, many of which 
stories proved to have no foundation in fact. 

At last the noises on the highway ceased, and 
we knew Sherman's great army had passed on 
toward the North. 

We began to breathe freely and feel that we 
could go to bed at night and sleep. At first we 
[236I 



THEY COME! 



went to bed with all our clothes on, but gradually 
we realized that the army had passed entirely, 
leaving no troops in the country behind them. 
News began to come in, and we knew that Sher- 
man had burned Columbia and left a trail of deso- 
lation where he had passed. The fear of the Con- 
federate troops had kept them to a narrow strip 
of country. It was Hke the path stripped by a 
tornado, narrow but complete destruction in it. 
Mrs. Evans ventured over to make us a visit. 
She had not yet assumed her natural proportions, 
but had Hghtened her burden so that she could 
walk the half-mile between our houses. We were 
eager to hear her experiences, but, to her intense 
disappointment, she had had none ! She had not 
seen a Yankee ! It shows how careful they were 
not to leave the main road for fear of ambush. 
She had prepared many brilhant, severe speeches 
to make to them, for she had a very witty, sharp 
tongue and was as bold as a lion, so that she felt 
very sore and aggrieved, and when she heard of 
our experiences her blood boiled that we had not 
lashed them with bitter words. 

About four days after they passed Daddy Aleck 
reappeared with the horses, safe and sound, but 
greatly distressed that he had waked hearing shots 
[237] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

near one morning, packed up his things quickly 
on his horses, and taken them deeper in the swamp 
and left one of the side-saddles hanging on a 
limb. Nelson also arrived, looking weary and 
blanched by his experiences. Daddy Aleck was a 
naturally brave, combative nature and very tough, 
but Nelson was a lover of peace and comfort, and 
camping out in the swamp was no joy to him. 
He and Daddy Aleck were never friends and dis- 
trusted each other, so they had not cared to go 
together. 



[238] 



CHAPTER XXIII 

DADDY HAMEDY'S APPEAL — IN THE 
TRACK OF SHERMAN'S ARMY 

ONLY a few days after Daddy Aleck's and 
Nelson's return, Brutus came from Loch 
Adele, bearing a piece of paper with hiero- 
glyphics on it in pencil. After much studying 
over it by each one of us, we found it was a note 
from dear, faithful Daddy Hamedy: "Miss, cum 
at once. Mister Yates dun dribe de peeple." 
Then mamma questioned the boy, not telling what 
trouble we had to make out the important docu- 
ment of which he was the bearer. He told his 
story. General Kilpatrick and the whole army 
had camped on the place a week. They had 
burned the gin-house after taking all the provi- 
sions they could carry away, and left the negroes 
without a thing to eat, and the whole country was 
the same — nothing to eat for the white people 
who belonged there any more than for them — 
and Mr. Yates had come to the farm the day be- 
fore and told Daddy Hamedy they must all leave 
the country at once and go back down to the 
low country from which they came. Daddy 
[239] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

Hamedy had answered him civilly; he said it 
would take them a day to prepare, and as soon as 
Mr. Yates left he had started this runner, Brutus, 
off. He had travelled all night to bring it quick ! 
Mamma praised him and gave him the best meal 
she could and told him to go to sleep. Everything 
was stirring that night, preparing for an early 
start. Mamma went over to see Mr. Evans and 
consulted him about it and told him she was 
going up the next day. He advised her greatly 
against it, but, finding he could not persuade her 
to give it up, he said he would ride on horseback 
along with us. He had saved his riding-horse by 
taking it in the swamp as Daddy Aleck had. 

So at daylight the next morning we started; 
mamma and I in the carriage with a basket of 
cooked food. Daddy Aleck driving and Brutus be- 
side him on the box, Mr. Evans riding beside the 
carriage. It was an awful experience, as it must 
always be to travel in the track of a destroying 
army. To begin with, the road was a quagmire. 
It took an experienced driver like Daddy Aleck 
to get us through, and even with all his care Bru- 
tus and Mr. Evans had often to get a rail from 
the fences along the road and pry our wheels out 
of the bog. We were never out of the sight of 
[240] 



DADDY HAMEDY'S APPEAL 

dead things, and the stench was almost unbear- 
able. Dead horses all along the way and, here 
and there, a leg or an arm sticking out of a hastily 
made too-shallow grave. Along the way ten cows 
dead in one pen, and then eight or ten calves dead 
in another. Dead hogs everywhere; the effort be- 
ing to starve the inhabitants out, no living thing 
was left in a very abundant country. It is a 
country of small farms, just two-roomed houses; 
all now tightly shut up, no sign of life. Wells 
with all means of drawing water destroyed. We 
stopped at one or two houses and knocked with- 
out any response, but at last we knocked at one 
where a tall, pale woman opened a crack of the 
door wide enough to talk through. No, she had 
nothing; could not help us in any way to draw 
water. So Daddy Aleck got his halters and tied 
them together and let his horse-bucket down into 
the well, and I was so thirsty I drank, but mamma 
would not. As we got beyond Cheraw, fifteen 
miles on our way, we began to meet some of our 
people from Morven, who had started on their 
hundred-mile flight to the low country, in obedi- 
ence to Mr. Yates's mandate — forlorn figures, a 
pot sometimes balanced on the head, and a bun- 
dle of clothing swung on the back, a baby in arms, 
[ 241 ] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

sometimes one or two children trailing behind. 
Mamma stopped as we got to each traveller and 
told them to turn back; she had come to feed them 
and do all she could for them, and they need have 
no fear. To Daddy Aleck's great indignation, she 
took some of the impedimenta from the most 
heavily loaded and we went on our way. We had 
made such an early start that few had gone more 
than a few miles, and all were so rejoiced to see 
mamma and so thankful to turn back that we be- 
gan to feel quite cheerful. 

It was lucky, for things were worse and worse 
as we went on; and when finally we got to pretty 
Loch Adele a scene of desolation met us — every 
animal killed, and the negroes had had a kind of 
superstitious feeling about making use of the 
meat, or they could have cured meat enough to 
last the winter; for, though the Yankees had 
burned down the gin-house, with cotton and pro- 
visions and salt, they could not destroy the lat- 
ter, and there, in a blackened mass, was a small 
mountain of salt. If Mr. Yates had been any 
good he could have seen to that. The house was 
not burned, but everything in it was broken to 
pieces — beds, sideboard, chairs, tables, and on 
the floor the fragments of the beautiful big medal- 
[242] 



DADDY HAMEDY'S APPEAL 

lions of "Night" and "Morning," chopped into 
Httle pieces. I found one baby's foot, whole, in 
the mass of rubbish, which I kept a long time, it 
was so beautiful, quite the size of a real baby's. 

We had a tremendous afternoon's work to clear 
away and make the place habitable for the night, 
but Brutus worked with me and I got two women 
to help, and we managed to prop up a table and 
put boards over the bottomless chairs, and by 
supper-time, with a bright fire burning, for we 
had only brought two candles, it was quite a dif- 
ferent-looking place. Mamma had brought two 
roast chickens and a piece of boiled bacon (as she 
had buried a box of bacon, fortunately) and a 
loaf of bread and some corn-dodgers which we 
toasted by the fire, so we had a good supper. 
The thing that worried us most was the fixing a 
comfortable bed for Mr. Evans, but we succeeded 
in propping up things, and, putting some straw 
and the blankets we had brought, made a com- 
fortable resting-place; but, when it was all fixed, 
Mr. Evans absolutely refused to occupy it, said 
he preferred to rest on the three-legged sofa by the 
fire, and insisted that mamma and I should take 
the bed. Which, after a little friendly contention, 
we did, and most thankful was I to stretch myself 
[243] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

on anything after the fatigues and agitations of 
the day. 

Early in the morning we were up and busy. 
Brutus cooked hominy for breakfast and fried 
some bacon. After breakfast Mr. Evans, seeing 
mamma equal to the situation, rode back home. 
Before we had sat down, forlorn-looking country 
people began to arrive. They sat around the fire 
on broken chairs while we ate breakfast. Then 
Mr. Yates arrived. He was so startled when he 
saw mamma he looked as though he would faint. 
He said good morning and then went out. People 
still came and mamma was filled with wonder as to 
what it meant, till one man said: 

"Wall, when's the auction goin' to begin .f*" 

Mamma said: "What auction?'' 

He said: "We was notified by your agent how 
as there was to be an auction here to-day, an' 
everything on the place was to be sold. I come 
to buy a plough." 

Mamma said: "There will be no auction here 
to-day." 

Then they one by one rose and said: "I reckon 
if there ain't to be no auction, we better be gittin' 
home." And they made their adieus and left. 

Then we understood. Mr. Yates had ordered 
the negroes to leave, and intended to sell out all 
[244] 




CHICORA WOOD. 
Photograph by Amelia M, Watson 



DADDY HAMEDY'S APPEAL 

the things on the place and take the money, never 
supposing there was any possibility of mamma's 
being informed in time to get up to prevent it. 
But he reckoned without knowing the negroes or 
mamma. As soon as they had all left, she sum- 
moned Mr. Yates and had a talk with him. She 
told him she would not need his services any 
more, that he had quite exceeded his authority in 
sending the negroes off without consulting her, 
and that the fact of his having advertised an auc- 
tion without her consent also showed that he mis- 
understood the situation. He was quite insolent 
and said he would not go unless he was paid in 
full. To which she answered she had no inten- 
tion of letting him go unpaid, asked for his ac- 
counts, looked over them, and gave him a check 
on Mr. Malloy in Cheraw. 

Mamma found that below the salt was a large 
pile of rough rice which would not burn, and which 
was ample provision for the negroes. On exami- 
nation we found that only the outside of the pile 
of rough rice was scorched. Rough rice (which is 
the rice still encased in its thick, rough, outer 
shell) cannot burn, and there was enough rice 
there to keep the people well fed a long time, and 
they prefer rice to any other food. They beat it 
in mortars made by taking about three feet of the 
[245I 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

trunk of a hardwood-tree and burning out the 
centre, so as to hold about six quarts of grain. 
Then they make a pestle from a smaller limb of 
hardwood neatly smoothed and rounded at the 
end; and with these crude implements the stiff, 
hard, almost indestructible hull is easily removed. 

Mamma also found that away from the path of 
the enemy there were supplies of sorghum syrup 
and potatoes, etc., which people would gladly 
bring to exchange for salt and rice. So we turned 
home, an immense load lifted from our hearts. 
The people would not really suffer ! 

Mamma made a little talk to the negroes, and 
told them just to stay quietly there and do their 
ordinary work, and that she had made arrange- 
ments for provisions for them to be brought to 
the farm every week, and that very soon she 
would have the flats come up from Chicora Wood 
and take them all back to the low country, and 
begged them not to lose their good reputation by 
breaking the law in any way, now that the whole 
country was so upset. And she thanked them for 
having behaved so well ever since papa had been 
taken, and having made it easy for her by their 
good conduct. And they courtesied and said: 
"Tank Gawd" that she had come to *'luk after'* 
[246] 



DADDY HAMEDY'S APPEAL 

her people and not let them be driven away by 
"Po' buckra." Altogether it was a very com- 
forting little scene. Daddy Hamedy made a lit- 
tle speech, assuring her of his fidelity to her, and 
that he would look after everything and let her 
know if anything went wrong. He apologized 
much for not having been able to protect the prop- 
erty, but he said General Kilpatrick and the sol- 
diers wouldn't listen to him at all, and just cut 
the dam and drained off the water and got Maus- 
sa's wine, and got drunk on it, and sent some off 
in wagons, and were so harsh to him he just had 
to keep out of sight of them. By the time they 
set fire to the gin-house, full of good provisions 
and all the fine cotton-crop, he was struck down 
by a severe chill and had to go to bed. And, 
when one looked at his face, one had to believe in 
his distress. Three of the young men had gone 
off with the soldiers. They wanted to take many 
more, but "tank de Lawd," they had more sense 
than to go. We left early the next morning and 
returned to Crowley. 



[247] 



CHAPTER XXIV 

SHADOWS DEEPEN 

A FTER this things are vague in my mind, 
/"% only an impression of distress and gloom. 
I got a letter from my cousin and friend, 
Hal Lesesne, telling of the successive falling back 
which was so terrible to them all. He had been 
so long in the forts around Charleston, and so 
greatly desired to see active service in Virginia, 
and now, alas, things were so black, no one could 
help fearing. "But be assured," he said, "we 
are fighting every step of the way, and make the 
enemy pay dearly for their gain." When I got 
that letter he had already fallen, killed in the 
very last battle of the war, Averysboro, I think. 
This was a great sorrow to me; and the surrender 
was just crushing and numbing to all my being. 
Men began to come in on their way home from 
the front, worn, weary, gaunt, and hungry. They 
had lived days and days and fought on a handful 
of parched corn. Their shoes were worn out, 
their uniforms ragged; only their spirit was un- 
dimmed, and that made them suffer so in the sense 
of failure. 

[248] 



SHADOWS DEEPEN 



My dear brother Charley finally came, a ghost 
of his former self, shoulders bowed down by march- 
ing with his heavy knapsack. He looked so ill 
and changed, we were not surprised when we 
found he had typhoid fever. He had been taken 
in and kindly nursed by friends on his way home, 
but he was a pitiful sight. 



[249] 



CHAPTER XXV 
GLEAMS OF LIGHT 

THEN one day, to our amazement, Sam 
Galant came with two horses which he 
had brought back safe all the way from 
Virginia ! They were thin and so was he, but it 
was a wonderful feat, without money and without 
food, at a time when the soldiers returning home 
on foot were desperate for a horse to till and cul- 
tivate the little farms to which they were return- 
ing empty-handed. How was it possible for Sam 
to escape capture by some of them, almost hope- 
less at the great distance from their homes, which 
they must travel mostly afoot! Sam had won- 
derful tales to tell of his experiences. He kept 
with Hampton's Cavalry all the time, leading 
horses to be at hand to replace those killed in bat- 
tle. He gave a thrilling account of the death of 
Bill, the mail horse. Edward Wells, of the 
Charleston Light Dragoons, was riding him, and 
as they were galloping out of Cheraw, just over 
the bridge, a shell went through Bill from tail to 
head, without exploding, leaving Mr. Wells stand- 
ing on his feet unhurt. "Sam, a horse," he called, 
[250] 



GLEAMS OF LIGHT 



and, according to Sam's tale, he stepped up in- 
stantly with a fresh horse, Mr. Wells mounted 
and was gone. Sam concluded: 

"Yes, ma'am, Mr. Wells is the bravest man in 
the world, I believe. He neber mind de shell 
busting all 'round him, en I was dere right along- 
side him, ready to his han'." 

Oh, if I had only got Sam to come and tell it all 
to me quietly long afterward, so that I could 
write it down as I did Daddy Ancrum's story ! 
But Sam was comparatively young, some years 
younger than myself, and I always thought there 
was time. I never thought of his dying. 

One day a messenger arrived from the planta- 
tion to mamma, with a badly scribbled line on 
brown paper: "Miss, cum quick, dem de 'stribute 
ebry ting." Mamma questioned the boy. He said 
the people had gone wild, that "a Capting from 
de Yankee A'my kum en a kerridge en tell de 
people dem is free en ebry ting belongst to dem. 
No wite peeple 'ill neber jum back, en den him 
'stribute ebery ting." 

Mamma told Daddy Aleck to have the carriage 

ready early the next morning, and she and I 

started off, leaving Delia and Jane still at Crowley, 

with all the servants. Charley rode with us on 

[251] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

horseback and, to our surprise, Julius Pringle 
turned up the evening before and said he would 
ride along with us too. The presence of these two, 
just home from all the dangers and suffering of the 
war, now here safe and sound, made the journey 
a great pleasure. Mr. Pringle rode Jerry, Char- 
ley's young half-Arab stallion, which mamma had 
sent on to Virginia for him, and which he rode as 
one of Hampton's scouts all the last year of the 
war. We had not gone far when a runner on foot 
from Chicora Wood met us. 

He said: "Miss, I got a pa'tikler messidge fu 
yu, en I wan' to speak to yu private." So mamma 
got out of the carriage and went a little way into 
the woods with him. He said: "A'nt Milly say 
don't kum, 'tis dang'us, but ef yu does kum, 
don't keep de publik road. Dem de watch fu yu ! 
Kum troo de 'oods." Mamma thanked and told 
him to go on to Crowley and rest and Miss Adele 
would give him plenty to eat, and when he was 
rested, he could start back. She got into the car- 
riage and we drove on. 

I never have understood that message from 

Maum Milly, whether it was a genuine anxiety on 

her part, or whether it was to keep mamma from 

coming and asserting her rights, by intimidating 

[252] 



GLEAMS OF LIGHT 



her. Maum Milly had always been greatly con- 
sidered and trusted. She held herself and her 
family as vastly superior to the ordinary run of 
negroes, the aristocracy of the race. Whatever 
her intention was, the message had no effect on 
mamma's plans, and we never left the public road. 

That night we stopped at a house where dark 
caught us, and asked for shelter, simply that; we 
had provisions. The family were from George- 
town and had refugeed here, the Sampsons, and 
they received us with enthusiastic hospitality and 
kindness, making us most comfortable for the 
night, and giving us a delicious and abundant 
supper and breakfast of fried chicken, so that we 
were able to keep our supplies for the next day. 
I do not think I ever saw as beautiful a young 
Jewess as the daughter of the family, Deborah 
Sampson. 

When we got to Plantersville we drove to Mrs. 
Weston to ask about them all, for we knew noth- 
ing of how they had fared in these dark days. 
Cousin Lizzie was rejoiced to see us after all we 
had both gone through, and Mr. Weston and her- 
self and Pauline most hospitably invited us to 
stay with them, until we could make arrange- 
ments to get the log house in order for us to 
[253] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

occupy, as it had been shut up a long time. There 
was so much to hear and so much to tell that it 
was hard to go to bed. They had been through a 
great trial in the Bunker raid, when this Yankee 
had come through the little village in an open car- 
riage, followed by a throng of negroes, whooping 
and yelling with joy, in response to his announce- 
ment that they were free, and that everything be- 
longed to them. He went to every house and 
seized every article of value, took the earrings 
from women's ears and the rings from their fin- 
gers; for the inhabitants of the little hamlet had 
been so far removed from the centre of war that 
they had not thought of concealing their valu- 
ables and jewelry, as no one had any fear of the 
negroes. This seems to me a wonderful tribute 
to them, and they deserve to have the changes 
rung on it. When this man, announcing himself 
as "A N'united State Officer," as they called it, 
authorized them to take possession of everything 
as their own, it is a marvel that license and shoot- 
ing did not ensue on their part; for the end had 
not come yet, and none of the men had come 
home from the army. There were only women 
and children and two old men in the village, and 
there might have been frightful scenes there. 
[254] 



GLEAMS OF LIGHT 



They took all Bunker gave them, but touched 
nothing themselves where the white owners were 
present. It was only on the plantations, where 
the owners were absent, that, on his persuasion, 
they pitched in and "stributed" the contents of 
the houses. That darky word for it is good, for 
each one took what he selected as fast as he could 
till there was nothing left. 

The next day Mr. Pringle rode up with a note 
from his mother, asking us to go down and stay 
with her at the White House, their plantation, 
twelve miles south of Plantersville, on the Pee 
Dee River, — that is, the Pee Dee ran in front of 
the house, and the Black River half a mile away 
at the back. Mamma accepted the invitation with 
much pleasure. Mrs. Pringle and her husband 
and Mary had been in Europe when the war broke 
out. The sons, Julius, Poinsett, and Lynch, were 
at Heidelberg University. The young men at 
once left, ran the blockade, and entered the Con- 
federate service. Mr. and Mrs. Pringle and Mary 
remained in Italy. Mr. Pringle died and was 
buried in the beautiful cemetery in Rome in 1863, 
and the next spring Mrs. Pringle and Mary came 
to America^ and stayed with Fanny Butler (daugh- 
ter of Fanny Kemble), at Butler Place, outside of 
[255] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

Philadelphia, until they were able to slip through 
the Hnes and get into Virginia, only to find the 
darling of them all, Poinsett, had been recently 
killed in battle. It was too awful for them. They 
stayed where they could occasionally see the other 
two boys, until this winter, when they made their 
way down to the plantation, to remain there. 

I had never been to the White House before, 
though I had always heard of it as very beautiful; 
a picturesque, rambHng house with three gables, 
set facing the river about 200 yards away, in a 
most beautiful garden, which had been planted 
by Mr. Poinsett, who was a specialist on gardens, 
a botanist. The White House was even more 
beautiful than I had imagined. As soon as you 
left the road you entered on a lane bordered on 
each side with most luxuriant climbing roses, 
now in riotous bloom, long garlands of white 
roses swaying in the breeze, high up, and quarrel- 
ling for supremacy with long garlands of pink 
roses. This lane took you direct to the Pee 
Dee River, where you made a sharp turn and 
drove along the avenue of live oaks just on the 
edge of the river, which had here a sand beach 
like the seashore. The effect was delightful; 
on the left the river, only a few feet away, on 
[256] 



GLEAMS OF LIGHT 



the right a green lawn, until you came to the 
vegetable-garden. A picture garden ! All the 
vegetables sedately in straight rows, and hav- 
ing nothing to do with each other. The French 
artichokes standing in stately stiff rows, not so 
much as glancing at the waving asparagus bed, 
nor the rows of pale-green mammoth roses, which 
turn out to be heads of lettuce. I had never seen 
a vegetable-garden which was ornamental before. 
While I was taking it in we entered the flower- 
garden, with a wilderness of roses, azaleas, camel- 
lias, and other beautiful shrubs and plants. 

Mamma and Mrs. Pringle were rejoiced to see 
each other, but it was sad, for both had sufi^ered 
much sorrow since their last meeting. Papa had 
been taken from us and Mrs. Pringle had lost 
both her husband and beautiful son, so it was a 
long time before they could become composed. 
That evening, however, they made up, for there 
was so much to be told. First of all, Mrs. Pringle 
told mamma that the government had ordered that 
all property belonging to Mrs. Allston, the sister 
of James L. Petigru, should be protected from all 
damage. This seemed to impress Mrs. Pringle 
very much, but mamma did not seem to attach 
much importance to it. She said she did not 
[257] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

think it was at all to be depended on, that she 
must go to Georgetown and get the commanding 
officer there to send a detachment of men to take 
from the negroes the keys of the barns at each 
plantation, where the large crops made were 
locked up. These keys they had given to the 
negroes, and mamma could get no corn for the 
horses nor provisions for herself, and they must 
restore the keys to her. Mrs. Pringle said it 
would be quite useless for her to ask anything 
until she took the oath of allegiance to the United 
States, that she had wanted something done and 
their reply was until she took the oath of alle- 
giance no request could be considered; that she 
had declined to do so at the time, but now felt it 
must be done. So it was arranged that mamma 
would take Mrs. Pringle down in her carriage to 
Georgetown the next day to take the oath, while 
I should remain with Mary and her brothers at 
the White House. 

Oh, what a white day that stands out in my 
memory ! I was embroidering a waist in black 
silk, to make a Russian blouse out of the ever- 
lasting purple calico we were all wearing. As I 
sewed in a big chair in the beautiful library, filled 
with most delightful books, exquisite engravings 
[258] 



GLEAMS OF LIGHT 



on the walls and marble busts around the room, 
Mr. Pringle read aloud to me. He picked up the 
first book his hand came upon, — I think it was 
** Eugene Aram." But the book was nothing; it 
was his voice, so beautifully modulated, and his 
presence, safe back from the awful danger, and in 
his own beautiful home. It cast a spell over me; 
and long afterward he told me he had no idea 
of what he was reading; nothing of it entered his 
mind; it was the simple fact of having me sitting 
there in his own home, sewing as if I belonged 
there, that intoxicated him, so that he was afraid 
to speak, and so took refuge in reading ! So there 
we were, a pair of idiots, in a fool's paradise, some 
might think, but such moments are immortal. 
Soul speaks to soul, though no voice be heard. 



[259] 



CHAPTER XXVI 
TAKING THE OATH 

THAT evening reality returned heavily when 
the two mothers, widows and managers of 
large estates and property, returned. The 
day had been very trying. The oath was taken 
as the first thing, they having made up their minds 
to take it at once. Then mamma asked the colo- 
nel to send a guard or a single soldier to take 
back the keys which they had given to the negroes 
and give them to her, the rightful owner of the 
foodstuffs in the barns. He said quite noncha- 
lantly that she could take the keys; it was not at 
all necessary for him to send a guard; he would 
give her a written order. She remonstrated with 
him, saying she believed in authority, and as an 
officer had delivered the key to the negroes, tak- 
ing it from the overseer, a white man who was in 
charge of the plantation, she thought it was abso- 
lutely necessary that an official or a man wearing 
the United States uniform should take the keys 
from the negroes and deliver them to her; that, 
without that, there was an opening for dispute 
and contention and disrespect. The colonel said 
[260] 



TAKING THE OATH 



shortly he did not agree with her. She then asked 
about the order from Washington as to the pro- 
tection of her property. Yes, he said that he had 
received such an order, but they knew of nothing 
to which it would apply. He wrote an order for 
the negroes to deliver the keys to her, and the 
interview was ended. She had some business of 
a different nature which she attended to in George- 
town, and then they drove back to the White 
House, very tired and very indignant at the want 
of courtesy, and desire to facilitate the return of 
things to a possible working order. The negroes 
were free — no one had a word to say on that 
score — but they were not owners of the land, and 
in order for things to assume a condition when 
the land could be planted, or, rather, prepared 
for planting, in the new order of things, the negroes 
would look to the officers for the tone they were 
expected to assume to their former owners. But 
it was evident these men absolutely refused to 
back up the white people in any way. The talk 
that evening was not cheering, to say the least. 

Mrs. Pringle told us, after the Georgetown mat- 
ter had been fully discussed, of her experience 
with the man, Bunker, who had led the negroes 
to Plantersville and behaved so outrageously 
[261] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

there, after turning over all the houses on the 
river, Chicora Wood included, to the negroes, to 
distribute all the contents among themselves. It 
was two days afterward that he came down to 
the White House, followed by an immense throng 
of negroes, and demanded wine and money. Mrs. 
Pringle, who was as bold as a lion and very clever, 
tall, stout, and of commanding presence, with the 
face of a man, met them on the piazza and refused 
to let them enter the house. Bunker had been 
drinking heavily and also some of the negroes. 
She spoke with authority, and said she knew the 
United States Government would nor sanction the 
seizure of her things by a drunken mob, even 
though one man, the leader, had on the United 
States uniform; and the army regulations were 
severe against intoxication. She was a Northern 
woman herself and knew all about it, and had 
friends in the government and the army at that 
moment. Bunker was a little dashed, but very 
angry at being talked to in that haughty manner 
before his followers, and things looked ugly for a 
moment, so that Mary, who was standing behind 
her mother, began to cry, and. Bunker's attention 
being diverted to her, he began to try to console 
her. She was a very beautiful girl. He brought for- 
[262] 



TAKING THE OATH 



ward some of the things he had stolen from the 
Plantersville people and presented them to her — 
silver pitchers, etc. Mary indignantly pushed 
them away, but her mother bent down and said: 
"Take them; you can restore them to the owner." 
So Mary let him bring them into the piazza and 
present them to her, but when he began to try to 
console her by complimentary speeches and ad- 
miring looks, she dropped her full length on the 
piazza in a dead faint ! Mrs. Pringle took her by 
the feet and dragged her in through the hall to the 
dining-room, and, locking the door, put the key 
in her pocket, and returned to the mob; but they 
had vanished away, leaving rapidly and quietly. 
They, no doubt, thought Mary was dead; those 
kind of people do not faint, and to see her bril- 
liant, radiant color suddenly turn to deadly white 
and her mother drag her limp body away like that 
sobered them. In the meantime the man whom 
they trusted as house-servant had busied himself 
getting out — the keys being in the basket in 
the drawing-room — all the wine and liquor there 
was in the house. He packed it up, and took it 
out of the back door to a cart which he had there, 
and went off with the party. He was never seen 
by them again. When they had all gone, Mrs. 
[263] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

Pringle unlocked the door, and used restoratives, 
and finally succeeded in bringing Mary to life, but 
she was terribly weak and ill for some days. Mrs. 
Pringle reviled Mary for being such a weakling 
and failing her at a critical moment, but we all 
felt and she knew that Mary had really saved the 
day, diverting the unsteady mind of Bunker from 
his original intention of plunder, first her tears 
and then her faint had converted his rage first to 
pity and then to fright. 

The next morning mamma and I left the hospi- 
table, beautiful White House after breakfast and 
drove to Nightingale Hall, about two miles away. 
Here the negroes had been specially turbulent. 
The overseer there, Mr. Sweat, was a very good, 
quiet man, and had been liked by all the negroes, 
but in the intoxication of freedom their first exer- 
cise of it was to tell Mr. Sweat if he left the house 
they would kill him, and they put a negro armed 
with a shotgun to guard the house and see that 
he did not leave alive. Mr. Sweat seems to have 
been something of a philosopher, for he assured 
them he had no intention of leaving, and settled 
himself quite cheerfully to pass the time of his 
imprisonment. The key of the barns having been 
given to the negroes, he kept a little journal of all 
[264] 



TAKING THE OATH 



they did. From his window he watched them 
take suppHes from the barns, corn and rice, using 
the baskets which were always used in measuring 
grain, open baskets made to hold a bushel, which 
is thirty-two quarts. In this way, as he knew 
exactly what was in the barns, having superin- 
tended the planting, harvesting, and threshing of 
the grains, he could tell just how much was left. 
He had written all of this to my mother, getting 
a friendly negro who cooked for him to take charge 
of the letter. 

When we drove in the yard the negroes soon 
assembled in great numbers. Mamma had not 
seen them at all yet. She talked with the foreman. 
Mack, very pleasantly from the seat in the car- 
riage, asking after all the old people on the place, 
and his family, etc. Then, finally, she said: 

"And now. Mack, I want the keys to the barn." 

He said: "De officer giv me de key, ma'am, en 
I kyant gie um to yu." 

She drew from her silk reticule the order, and 
said: "I have here the officer's order to you to 
give the key to me." 

He took the paper and looked at it, but there 
rose a sullen murmur from the crowd, and a young 
man who had stood a little way off, balancing a 
[265] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

sharp stone in his hand and aiming it at mamma 
from time to time, now came nearer and leaned 
on the wheel of the carriage. Mamma thought he 
wanted to intimidate her, and so she stepped out 
of the carriage into the very midst of them. I 
motioned to follow, but she said in a low tone, as 
she shut the door, "Stay where you are," and I 
obeyed. 

The foreman said: "How we gwine eat ef we 
gie yu de key ? We haf fu hab bittle." 

Mamma answered: "Mack, you know that 
every man, woman, and child on this place has full 
ration for a year ! You know, for you measured 
it and gave it out yourself. If anything should 
be wanted, I will come down and give it out my- 
self." 

At that the young man, still balancing the stone, 
laughed, and all followed in a great shout, and he 
said: "Yu kyant do dat, dat de man wuk. Yu 
kyan do um, en we'll starve." 

But mamma held her ground, and walking up 
and down among them, speaking to each one by 
name, asking after their children and babies, all 
by name. Gradually the tension relaxed, and 
after a long time, it seemed to me ages, in which 
she showed no irritation, no impatience, only 
[266] 



TAKING THE OATH 



friendly interest, no sense that they could possi- 
bly be enemies, Mack gave her the keys without 
any interference from the others, and we left. 
She did not think it wise to go to the barn to look 
at the crops. Having gained her point, she 
thought it best to leave. We were both terribly 
exhausted when we got home, and enjoyed a good 
night's rest in our own very original-looking log 
house in Plantersville, which Charley had suc- 
ceeded in getting made clean and comfortable 
for us. 

The next morning, after breakfast, we started 
to Chicora Wood to get the keys there. Mamma 
did not take Charley, for he was very weak from 
his illness, and having made the trip down before 
he was strong enough. Besides that, in the con- 
dition of the country, the negroes were apt to be 
more irritated by the presence of a returned sol- 
dier than with ladies only. Besides which, it was 
a very mortifying position for a man, whose im- 
pulse, under insolence or refusal to do the right 
thing, was naturally to resent it, and, being per- 
fectly powerless, not having taken the oath, he 
was not even recognized as a citizen, and had no 
rights and would have no support from the law. 
Therefore, it was certainly the part of wisdom to 
[267] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

leave him behind, though I did not fully under- 
stand it at the time. We did not have much 
trouble at Chicora. Daddy Primus had been the 
man to whom the keys were given, and he was a 
very superior, good old man. He had been head 
carpenter ever since Daddy Thomas's death. He 
took mamma into each barn and showed her the 
splendid crops, and as he locked the door to each, 
she just held out her hand for it, and he placed 
the key to that barn in her hands without ques- 
tion. And here the people seemed glad to see 
her and to see me, and we walked about over the 
place and talked with every one. 

We looked at the house; it was a wreck, — the 
front steps gone, not a door nor shutter left, and 
not a sash. They had torn out all the mahogany 
framework around the doors and windows — 
there were mahogany panels below the windows 
and above the doors there were panels painted — 
the mahogany banisters to the staircase going up- 
stairs; everything that could be torn away was 
gone. The pantry steps being there, we went 
into the house, went all through, even into the 
attic. Then the big tank for the supply of the 
water-works, which was lined with zinc, had been 
torn to pieces, and the bathroom below entirely 
[268] 



TAKING THE OATH 



torn up. It was a scene of destruction, and 
papa's study, where he kept all his accounts 
and papers, as he had done from the time he 
began planting as a young man, was almost waist- 
deep in torn letters and papers. Poor things, 
they were looking, I suppose, for money or trea- 
sure of some kind in all those bundles of letters 
and papers most methodically and carefully tied 
up with red tape, each packet of accounts having 
a wooden slat, with the date and subject of ac- 
count upon it. We looked through every corner, 
and then went out on the piazza and sat down 
and ate the lunch we had brought. It is wonder- 
ful to me, as I look back, that we were so cheerful; 
but we were, and after a good lunch with some 
hard-boiled eggs Maum Mary brought us, we got 
into the carriage and drove home to the dear, 
peaceful log house. 

The next morning we started early in the car- 
riage for Guendalos, mamma and I, driven by 
Daddy Aleck. This plantation belonged to my 
elder brother. Colonel Ben Allston, who had been 
in the army since the beginning of the war, never 
having been home at all. There had been no white 
man on the place, and we heard the negroes were 
most turbulent and excited. As we neared the 
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place the road was lined on either side by angry, 
sullen black faces; instead of the pleasant smile 
and courtesy or bow to which we were accus- 
tomed, not a sign of recognition or welcome, only 
an ominous silence. As the carriage passed on 
they formed an irregular line and followed. 

This would be a test case, as it were. If the 
keys were given up, it would mean that the for- 
mer owners still had some rights. We drove into 
the barnyard and stopped in front of the barn. 
Several hundred negroes were there, and as they 
had done the day before, they crowded closer and 
closer around the carriage, and mamma got out in- 
to the midst of them, as she had done at Nightin- 
gale. She called for the head man and told him 
she wished to see the crop, and he cleared the 
way before us to the rice barn and then to the 
corn barn. Mamma complimented him on the 
crops. As she was about to leave the corn barn 
a woman stretched her arms across the wide door 
so as to hold up the passageway. Mamma said, 
"Sukey, let me pass," but Sukey did not budge. 
Then mamma turned to Jacob. "This woman has 
lost her hearing; you must make her move from 
the doorway." Very gently Jacob pushed her 
aside and we went out and Jacob locked the door. 
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TAKING THE OATH 



Then mamma said: "And now, Jacob, I want the 
keys." "No, ma'am, I kyant gie yu de key. De 
officer gen me de key, en I kyant gie um to nobody 
but de officer." 

"I have the officer's written order to you to 
give me the keys — here it is" — and she drew 
from her reticule the paper and handed it to 
Jacob. He examined it carefully and returned it 
to her, and proceeded slowly to draw the keys 
from his pocket and was about to hand them to 
mamma, when a young man who had stood near, 
with a threatening expression sprang forward and 
shouted, "Ef yu gie up de key, blood'll flow," 
shaking his fist at Jacob. Then the crowd took 
up the shout, "Yes, blood'll flow for true," and a 
deafening clamor followed. Jacob returned the 
keys to the depths of his pocket. The crowd, 
yelling, talking, gesticulating, pressed closer and 
closer upon us, until there was scarcely room to 
stand. Daddy Aleck had followed with the car- 
riage as closely as the crowd would allow without 
trampling some one, and now said to mamma: 
"Miss, yu better git een de carriage." Mamma 
answered by saying: "Aleck, go and bring Mas' 
Charles here." 

Most reluctantly the old man obeyed, and drove 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

off, leaving us alone in the midst of this raging 
crowd. I must say my heart sank as I saw the 
carriage with the faithful old man disappear down 
the avenue — for there was no white person within 
five miles and in this crowd there was certainly 
not one friendly negro. Jacob, the head man, was 
the most so, but evidently he was in great fear of 
the others and incapable of showing his good feel- 
ing openly. I knew that Daddy Aleck would 
have to drive five miles to find Charley and then 
back, and that must consume a great deal of 
time. 

The crowd continued to clamor and yell, first 
one thing and then another, but the predominant 
cry was: "Go for de officer — fetch de Yankee." 
Mamma said: "By all means bring the officer; I 
wish to see him quite as much as you do." 

The much-desired and talked-of officer was four- 
teen miles away. In the midst of the uproar a 
new man came running and shouting out that the 
officers were at a plantation three miles away, so 
six men started at a run to fetch him. Mamma 
and I walked slowly down the avenue to the public 
road, with a yelling mob of men, women, and 
children around us. They sang sometimes in uni- 
son, sometimes in parts, strange words which we 
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TAKING THE OATH 



did not understand, followed by a much-repeated 

chorus: 

"I free, I free! 

I free as a frog ! 

I free till I fool ! 

Glory Alleluia !" 

They revolved around us, holding out their 
skirts and dancing — now with slow, swinging 
movements, now with rapid jig-motions, but al- 
ways with weird chant and wild gestures. When 
the men sent for the officer reached the gate they 
turned and shouted, "Don't let no white man een 
dat gate," which was answered by many voices, 
"No, no, we won't let no white pusson een, we'll 
chop um down wid hoe — we'll chop um to pieces 
sho" — and they brandished their large, sharp, 
gleaming rice-field hoes, which looked most for- 
midable weapons truly. Those who had not hoes 
were armed with pitchforks and hickory sticks, 
and some had guns. 

It was a strange situation: Two women, one 
fifty, the other eighteen, pacing up and down the 
road between two dense hedges of angry blacks, 
while a little way off in the woods was a company 
of men, drawn up in something Hke military 
order — guns held behind them — solemn, silent, 
gloomy, a contrast to the noisy mob around us. 
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There we paced for hours while the autumn day 
wore on. 

In the afternoon Daddy Aleck returned with- 
out Charley, having failed to find him. It was a 
great relief to me, for though I have been often 
laughed at for the opinion, I hold that there is a 
certain kind of chivalry in the negroes — they 
wanted blood, they wanted to kill some one, but 
they couldn't make up their minds to kill two de- 
fenseless ladies; but if Charley had been found 
and brought, I firmly believe it would have kin- 
dled the flame. When the carriage came, I said 
to mamma in a low tone: "Let us go now." 

She answered with emphasis, but equally low, 
"Say not one word about going; we must stay 
until the officers come" — so we paced on, listen- 
ing to blasphemous mutterings and threats, but 
appearing not to hear at all — for we talked to- 
gether as we walked about the autumn flowers 
and red berries, and the brilHant skies, just as 
though we had been on our own piazza. I heard 
the little children say to each other: "Luk a dem 
buckra 'oman, ain't 'fraid." 

The sun sank in a blaze of glory, and I began to 
wonder if we would spend the night there, when 
there was a cry, "Dey comin'!" We thought it 
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TAKING THE OATH 



was the officers, and how I did wish they could 
come and see us there, but it turned out to be four 
of the runners, who had returned, saying they had 
not found the officers, and that Jacob and one of 
the men had gone on to Georgetown to see them. 
Then we got into the carriage and drove home. 
We were hungry and exhausted, having tasted no 
morsel of food or drop of water through the long 
day. We went to bed in our log castle, which 
had no lock of any kind on the door, and slept 
soundly. 

In the early dawn of the next morning there 
was a knock at the door, and before we could reach 
the hallway the door was opened, and a black 
hand thrust through, with the keys. No word 
was spoken — it was Jacob; he gave them in si- 
lence, and mamma received them with the same 
solemnity. 

The bloodless battle had been won. 

Charles Petigru Allston's Narrative 

During the war there was great demand for 
horses, which increased as the time went on. My 
father always raised a few horses, and at this time 
there was a gray stallion (part Arab), just four 
years old, that my father had given to me the 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

winter before he died; there were also several 
other horses, saddle and draft. After my father's 
death, my mother, in the summer of 1864, made 
an arrangement with some friends in the Cavalry 
Service, C. S. A., Butler's Command, to take and 
use our horses, with the promise that any that 
survived should be returned to us after the war. 

One of the horses was killed under Edward L. 
Wells, of the Charleston Light Dragoons, as But- 
ler's Scouts were leaving Cheraw, S, C, by a 
Parrot shell that passed through him, going in at 
the tail and coming out of the chest, did not ex- 
plode, and left Wells uninjured. 

My gray stallion was ridden by JuHus Pringle 
all through Virginia, wherever Butler's Cavalry 
went, and returned safe and sound. The other 
two horses, a gray gelding and a bay filly, were 
alive at the time of the surrender, and Julius 
Pringle turned them over to a young negro of 
ours, who had been sent along with the horses, in 
charge of them (Sam Galant) somewhere in Vir- 
ginia, and told him to make his way back home, 
and to get away before the actual surrender. " The 
lad was of a family who had been long in our ser- 
vice, family servants for generations; his father 
had been my father's body-servant for years, and 
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TAKING THE OATH 



then been succeeded in that office by one of his 
sons, and Sam had grown up with me. My father 
had sent him to Charleston to be instructed in 
music by Mr. Dauer, a German, with three others, 
and he played the viohn very well. This boy had 
no money that we knew of, food was scarce, strag- 
gling marauders many, the horses in pretty poor 
shape, yet he managed to work his way with two 
horses through the country, and arrive at Crowley 
Hill safe, but nearly starved, both he and the 
horses, specially the gray. I asked him after- 
ward how he managed it; he said he seldom moved 
during the day, but got out of the way as much 
as possible, and let the horses eat grass; then at 
night he travelled, but was careful to avoid all 
other travellers, and also all camp-fires. He must 
have done some very adroit foraging, also, or he 
would surely have starved. Horses were specially 
valuable then, and we were glad to see these two 
return. 

After things settled down somewhat, in May, 
1865, I think, my mother decided that she would 
have to go to the plantation home in Georgetown 
County to look after affairs there, and try to re- 
store order. A deserter from the fleet off the 
coast had gone through all the plantations near 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

Georgetown, and incited the negroes to plunder 
and rob in every direction, and had caused much 
trouble and demoralization. Several fine dwell- 
ings had been completely destroyed, and all of 
them robbed of every movable article. My 
mother and one of my sisters started in the car- 
riage, with a pair of horses driven by old Aleck — I 
rode along on horseback — Julius Pringle, also on 
horseback, joined us. There was practically no 
law in the land, but the influence of established 
authority in the past kept a very fair semblance 
of order. We had a journey of over ninety miles 
ahead of us, roads and everything uncertain, but 
we made the trip safely and with little incident, 
and arrived safely at Plantersville, which was a 
collection of houses built irregularly in the pine- 
land, as summer homes for the rice-planters along 
the rivers, who had to leave the comfortable plan- 
tation homes in May and go to the rough pine- 
land houses until November, on account of ma- 
laria fever. Our summer house was on the sea, 
and could not be occupied at all during the war, 
so my father had built by his carpenters in this 
settlement a large log house, on lightwood pillars 
ten feet high, to escape damp, and put on it a 
double roof of cypress shingles, in which there 
[278] 



TAKING THE OATH 



was not a single metal nail; they were securely 
fastened on with wooden pins. (Up to the year 
1900 this roof did not have to be renewed.) To 
this log house my mother, sister, and myself were 
to go. 

After a while we had to set to work to gather 
in some of the furniture which the negroes had 
carried off and hidden, for we had not enough to 
get along with; my mother, having taken the 
oath as soon as she returned to the low country, 
some time before, applied to the military authori- 
ties, and a corporal and three men were detailed 
to assist in recovering what we could find. . . . 
There were some wild and weird scenes enacted. 
The nigs had been told that everything would be- 
long to them; that the government would punish 
the whites for the war, by taking their property 
and dividing it among the nigs, giving forty acres 
to each head of family, etc. So when we arrived, 
backed by soldiers, to take from them what they 
had collected of our belongings, they were much 
taken aback, and some of them were inclined to 
resist. However, we gathered up enough furni- 
ture and stuff to get along comfortably. 

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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

Then came the agreements as to planting; what 
portion of the crop they should have in payment 
of their labor, and what portion we, the owners 
of the land, should have; here again the military 
had to be called in. One lieutenant, who was 
trying to argue with a violent gang, finally turned 
to my mother and said, with a most troubled face: 
*'Mrs. Allston, I think I would rather have white 
help." He could do nothing with them, and a 
man of sterner mould had to come another day 
and make the contract with that gang. 

But in Plantersville we young folk took every 
opportunity possible to have a dance or some 
frolic at night. It was certainly most wholesome 
to have some diversion from the serious problems 
of the day. 



[280] 



PART V 
READJUSTMENT 



CHAPTER XXVII 
GLEAMS OF LIGHT FROM MY DIARY 

Log Castle, Plantersville, July lOth, 1865. 

IT seems too wonderful to be at home again in 
my own dear low country after being refugees 
so long. It is a delight to be alive, and know 
most of those we love are alive too after the terri- 
ble sufferings and anxieties of the War. We miss 
Papa more and more every day; it seems impossi- 
ble it should be only a year and three months 
since he died, it seems years and years. Poor 
Mamma, who was perfectly unaccustomed to busi- 
ness, has had every thing upon her, and it is a 
perfect wonder to see her rise to each emergency 
as it comes. Yesterday she called Daddy Aleck 
and told him she had not the money to pay his 
wages and he would have to find another place. 

He was very indignant. "Miss, I don' want no 
wagis ! Aint I wuk fu yu sence I bin man grown, 
aint my fadder wuk fu Maussa fadder ! En my 
grandfadder de same ! Aint yu feed me on de 
bes' ! An' clothes me in de bes'. Aint I drive 
yo', de Guvna's lady all de time Maussa bin 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

Guv'na, en now yu tink I gwine lef yu, en lef de 
bosses. 'Tis true I got but a po' pair, jes' wat 
dem Yankee lef, but I kin manige wid dem, en I 
wont lef dem en yu to dat triflin niggah boy, no 
ma'am, not Aleck Pa'ka, e aint mean enuf fu 
dat!" 

It was a distressing scene. Mamma was much 
moved, but she was firm, and when Daddy Aleck 
realized that she would not be persuaded, the tears 
rolled down his shiny black face and I, in my cor- 
ner pretending to write, ignominiously sobbed. 
When Daddy Aleck had gone, I remonstrated 
with Mamma. I did not see how we could get on 
without the old man, and he did not want to go, 
he would be content to stay if he had his food and 
clothes as usual, and I thought it was cruel. 

Mamma said, "Child, you don't understand; 
Aleck really wants to stay now, but I have no 
right to keep him. He is a valuable groom and 
hostler, can manage and drive any horses, and he 
can easily get a good place in Georgetown, whereas 
I could not only not pay him, but I could not pos- 
sibly feed him as he has been accustomed to be 
fed, sugar and coffee and tea and all the meat he 
wanted. We barely have what will keep the 
household, and a very little coffee and tea. As 
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GLEAMS OF LIGHT FROM MY DIARY 

to clothing him, that means a heavy outlay and 
is out of the question." 

As I still argued, she said, "My dear Bessie, 
why make things harder for me ? Try and trust 
to my desire to do the best I can under great trial 
and strain." Of course, I was ashamed of my self, 
and tried to say so; but I am a stubborn brute 
and find it hard to say I'm sorry even when I am. 

Aug. 1st. My days are so happy. I cut and 
contrive new garments out of old, and sew and 
dream as I sew. Brother's wife, Ellen, is very 
pretty and very sweet, but very ill, it seems to 
me. She cannot walk or do anything but lie still 
and read and talk; this last she is always ready 
to do, and while I rub her, as I do twice a day to 
try and give some strength to her limbs, she talks 
most entertainingly. She has been a great belle 
and was engaged to three other men when she 
married Brother. She was surprised when she 
first told me and I appeared shocked. It seems, 
in Texas, it is thought nothing of, but I solemnly 
advised her not to mention it here, at which she 
laughed heartily. Afterwards, I could not help 
laughing myself, for Brother has had rather a 
varied career in the way of engagements, but I 
did not tell her this. 

I 285] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

I have been crazy to have some low necked 
waists to wear in the late afternoon and evenings. 
I always used to dress for the evenings, and I am 
so tired of these everlasting calico frocks which 
we are all wearing. Papa was lucky enough to 
get a piece of purple calico two years ago, which 
ran the Blockade. We were enchanted, it was 
rather a pretty pattern, purple stripes on a white 
ground and a little flower in each stripe. We were 
much in need of frocks so Mamma had made for us 
each two dresses and she had two herself. From 
that day we have been in uniform. I cut my 
waist myself so as to have it different. I made a 
Russian blouse and embroidered the shoulder 
straps and sleeves and belt in black, but, alas, the 
difference is only waist deep. The rest is just 
like the other eight ! Two weeks ago I had a 
brilliant idea. Delia's bedroom curtains were pink 
and white chintz and were lined with pink paper 
cambric. The sun has faded the linings hope- 
lessly into every shade of yellow and brown, in 
some places almost white. That gave me the 
thought that if I bleached those linings, I might 
have some white material to make into waists, so 
I went to the plantation and consulted Maum 
Milly. She looked at the stuff and thought it 
[286] 



GLEAMS OF LIGHT FROM MY DIARY 

could be done. Told me how to wash it first, then 
let it lie in cold water a day or so, then spread it 
on the grass and leave it for the sun and dew to 
bleach, and she thought, in two or three weeks, 
it would be white. She has always been our laun- 
dress, but now of course we cannot pay her and 
have just a little girl her granddaughter doing 
the washing. After having given me all the di- 
rections of what to tell the *'gal" to do, I said I 
would not think of trusting it to Clarissa. I was 
going to do it myself. Then Maum Milly's heart 
relented and she said, *' Chile, yu kyant do um 
proper. Gim me dat cloth, I'll do um fu yu." 
So now I know if it can be done, it will be. 

Aug. loth. Maum Milly brought my white 
stuff, looking like a fine piece of muslin, and I 
have made two lovely low necked baby waists. 
They are too sweet, gathered very full and little 
short sleeves also gathered full, and around the 
neck and sleeves I have put the beautiful Valen- 
ciennes lace Mamma gave me, and they are things 
of beauty. No one would ever dream they were 
evolved from faded pink paper cambric curtain 
linings. Mrs. Pringle and Mary, who are very 
critical, having lived much in the great world, 
admired my waist very much last night when 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

they had a Httle dance at their house. I was care- 
ful not to tell its history. 

They are such an addition to this little village 
for, though in deep grief for the loss of Poinsett 
who was killed at Haw's Ship, Mrs. Pringle is so 
thankful to have her other two sons alive and 
with her that, though he was the darling of her 
heart, she keeps herself and her house as cheerful 
as possible, and does all she can to make the vil- 
lage brighter. Most people think it proper to be 
very gloomy. Of course, it is hard, all the people 
who were rich are now very poor but there is no 
good being gloomy over it. So Mrs. Pringle gives 
little dances now and then, and they are delight- 
ful. Then we have riding parties. Dear old 
Daddy Aleck saved two of our side saddles for 
us. I am so glad mine was one. 

Thanks to Sam for bringing home the horse and 
Daddy Aleck for the saddle, I am able to ride; 
and, as every body is afraid of tete-a-tetes, we go 
in parties, four girls and four men, all riding to- 
gether. I say afraid of tete-a-tetes because the 
War is still so very near, and it is hard to keep to 
surface talk, and it is awfully dangerous to go be- 
low, for we are all paupers. 

Mamma has gone to Charleston to see if she can 
[288] 



GLEAMS OF LIGHT FROM MY DIARY 

arrange to have our house repaired. Three shells 
went through the roof and it is impossible to live 
in it until it is thoroughly repaired. I do hope 
she will succeed, but she has not a cent of money, 
and nowhere to borrow any. It does seem des- 
perate, but I must remember when Papa was dy- 
ing and Mamma in despair said, "What shall we do 
without you ?" He answered steadily, in spite of 
his gasping breath, "The Lord will provide." And 
we have been marvellously helped and guided. 

Aug. 2^th. A letter from Mamma today has up- 
set me completely. She has been very successful 
in getting the house repaired. A contractor who 
knew her well and had worked for Papa and done 
up the house the last time, undertook to do all 
the work without any payment now; but, when 
he has finished. Mamma will give him her note 
promising to pay as soon as she can. This has 
lifted a great load, but the tremendous announce- 
ment is that she has determined to open a board- 
ing and day school, and she expects me to teach! 
The minute I read the letter I wrote, "Mamma, I 
cannot teach. Don't ask me to do it. I just 
hate the thought. Besides, I don't know enough 
of any one thing to teach it. I cannot, indeed, I 
cannot." Now that I have sent the letter I am 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

awfully ashamed, and when we were riding this 
afternoon, we fell a little behind the others and I 
told Mr, P. He seemed so shocked and surprised. 
Altogether I am miserable. Am I really just a 
butterfly ^ Is my love of pleasure the strongest 
thing about me ? What an awful thought. I 
try to pray, but I don't want to pray. I just 
do want to be for a while like a flower in the 
sun. I want to open and feel the glow and the 
beauty and the joy of existing, even if I know I 
have to wither and die sometime. Flowers don't 
think of that, they just rejoice in the life God has 
made so beautiful for them, and I do believe He 
likes that. Oh dear, how I wish I was good or 
dead, one or the other. Now I must go and rub 
my pretty sweet sister-in-law, and try to forget 
how wicked I am. 

Sept, 1st. A letter from Mamma in answer to 
my protest that I could not teach. "My dear 
Bessie, your letter was a great surprise. It would 
be a serious disappointment if all the money your 
Father so gladly spent on your education has been 
wasted. However, I think you do yourself an in- 
justice. At any rate, you will come down for the 
opening of the school and we will see." 

That is all, no reproaches for my petulance and 
[290] 



GLEAMS OF LIGHT FROM MY DIARY 

miserable selfishness. But I notice she does not 
confide her plans to me any more, and that hurts 
more than bitter words. "Oh, wretched man that 
I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this 
Death." I don't believe I have quoted it right, 
but that means self. Mr. Glennie in our Bible 
lesson once told us that in some Eastern country 
the punishment for a murderer was to bind the 
body of his victim with chains on his back, and 
he must wander ever with this putrifying result of 
his crime, until it crumbled away. What an awful 
punishment, and how suitable. Mr. Glennie did 
not tell us it meant one's own wretched self in 
that cry, but I know it does by my own experience. 
One is never free from that burden self. Happy 
those, I suppose, in whom it perishes by disinte- 
gration before they get old. Alas, alas, in some 
it seems well nigh indestructible ! 

Sept. '^rd. We cannot have any service in the 
dear little old log church, for Mr. Trapier will not 
pray for the President of the United States, and 
so we have not the pleasure and comfort of church. 

Mr. P. comes every day and reads aloud to 

me. It is really unique. I sit inside the window 

and sew on my ingenious remakings of old things 

and he sits outside the window and reads, "He 

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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

knew He was Right." It is perfectly delightful 
for me, it is so much easier than talking. People 
are so disagreeable, the village is all saying we are 
engaged. I know he is hearing it all the time, as 
I am, and it is so awkward for both. I thought 
it would be easier if I referred lightly to it, so this 
morning, sewing very fast, pricking my first fin- 
ger brutally, I said, "Last evening I was walking 
in the village and heard something so absurdly 
ridiculous." I got no farther, for in a solemn, 
hurt voice, from across the window sill, there 
came, "I'm sorry it seemed so ridiculous to you. 
It did not seem so to me." Then I took refuge 
in immoderate laughter, after which I said, "Please 
go on with the book." But I felt I had been de- 
feated in my effort to make things more com- 
fortable. 

Sept. i^th. The wild flowers are so beautiful 
all through the woods. I do not walk in the vil- 
lage now, people are so trying. I go out into the 
swamp behind the house every afternoon. There 
are great tiger lilies and the gorgeous Cardinal 
Flower, I call it scarlet lobeHa. In the up coun- 
try where we have been for four years, I never 
saw these flowers. Then the ferns and the lovely 
little partridge berry vine. This is called the 
[ 292] 



GLEAMS OF LIGHT FROM MY DIARY 

lover's vine sometimes, because there are two 
lovely sweet little white flowers, with the delicate 
perfume of the orange blossom, and when they 
drop there is formed only one scarlet berry, but it 
has two little eyes. It grows along the ground. 
Its dark green, regularly placed leaves and bright 
berries are too pretty. I mean to take some up 
and plant it in a box to take to Charleston with 
me, to remind me of this dear darling country. 

Riding two afternoons ago, we were galloping 
along four abreast, as if for a charge, when Dot 
shied from a snake alongside the road, and my 
saddle turned completely under her, and I found 
myself under my neighbour's horse ! He was so 
frightened and so was every one else that they all 
seemed indignant at my laughing. It seemed un- 
suitable to the situation, but it really was too 
funny, I seated in the middle of the road under 
Mr. P.'s horse, whose name is Trovatore and 
who behaved beautifully and did not trample me 
or hurt me at all. Everyone was pale and clam- 
orous for restoratives, which I did not in the least 
need. My saddle was put back and secured and 
we had a very silent ride home in spite of my 
eflForts to talk. 

Sept. 26th. Every one said my delightful soli- 

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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

tary strolls in the swamp would end in fever, and 
every one is happy now for they were right and I 
have been laid low for a week. As there was no 
one here to take care of me, Ellen requiring great 
care herself, Mrs. Pringle, who adds to her other 
great qualities that of being a competent nurse, 
has been coming over every day to take care of 
me. It is delightful, for she is so clever and (for 
the moment) so sympathetic that I positively en- 
joy the state of things except when I am actually 
burning up with fever. Dr. Dan Tucker is at- 
tending me, and is a delightful Doctor. I was 
burning up with thirst, my fever so high and the 
practice of the country is to give water by the 
teaspoonful in fever. To my delight and the sur- 
prise of the inhabitants, especially that revered per- 
sonage, the oldest, the Doctor, ordered a pail of 
water brought fresh from the spring and put by 
my bedside with a dear little gourd dipper, and 
told me to drink all I wanted ! It was so clever 
of him, for it is so much to satisfy the eye and the 
imagination. I really do not drink so much, but 
I feel refreshed and satisfied by its presence and 
the fact that I can have all I want, I am sitting 
up today and so bored by the absence of Mrs. 
[294] 




MRS. WILLIAM ALLSTON (NEE ESTER LA BROSSE DE MAHBOEUF). 

From a portrait painted by an Englisli artist who visited this country before the Revo- 
lution. The portrait was pierced through the left eye by a British soldier when 
hanging in the dining-room of the Allston house in Georgetown, S. C 



GLEAMS OF LIGHT FROM MY DIARY 

Pringle that I have to write to pass the time. 
Dr. Dan Tucker was educated in Paris, that is, 
took his medical course there. He served through 
the War as Surgeon and has now settled here. 

Sept. 28th. Dr. Tucker wants me fed up, and 
Mrs. Pringle is bringing me over delicious things 
to eat, made by herself for she is a distinguished 
cook. The Doctor shot and sent me a most beau- 
tiful summer duck two days ago. I enjoyed some 
of it very much, but the next day came out in 
huge splotches of red all over me. Mrs. Pringle 
was quite scared, but the Doctor said that the 
food was a little too strong for me yet awhile, and 
I must have no more till I was able to walk about. 

Oct. iph. Wild excitement! Letter from 
Mamma, Delia has a little daughter! I am an 
Aunt ! As if that was not excitement enough. 
Mamma writes I must go down to Charleston at 
once. The house is not yet ready, but Aunt Petigru 
has invited me to stay there until we are able to 
move into the house. I am pleased and yet I am 
sorry. I hate to have this summer, the happiest of 
my life, end. And yet I knew it had to end, and it 
was time. I have let myself just dream and dream, 
and, when one has to work, it is not good to dream. 
[295] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

I have been far from idle in body; I have kept the 
house, and nursed Ellen, and rubbed her, kneel- 
ing morning and evening for an hour at a time by 
the bed and not minding my own back aching till 
I nearly drop, and I have sewed and done many 
other necessary things, but all the time I have 
been dreaming, and I do love it. But now I must 
be stern and say, "Get behind me, Satan," when 
the dreaminess wants to seize me. The bell is 
ringing, I must go. 

Oct. 20th. The last few days have been trying. 
I have had so much trouble to keep on the sur- 
face. I am going tomorrow. Brother will drive 
me to Georgetown to take the boat. My irre- 
sponsible life ends. It has not lasted long, for. 
Brother being away, I had all the copying of 
Papa's will to send to the different members of 
the family, and the lists of the negroes and the 
plantations and all the property to make, and it 
is only these two months, since Brother has been 
at home and has taken charge of everything, that 
I have been able to enjoy being young and foolish. 
I love dancing and I love admiration and I love 
to be gay; but all the time, underneath all that, I 
am so terribly serious, so terribly in earnest that 
[296] 



GLEAMS OF LIGHT FROM MY DIARY 

I find the other girls do not understand me and 
the men are startled and puzzled — all but my 
friend, and I have to be so fiercely foolish and on 
the surface with him if I am to prevent a catas- 
trophe, and I must prevent it. 



[297] 



CHAPTER XXVIII 
AUNT PETIGRU — MY FIRST GERMAN 

Charleston, Oct. 2$th. 

MY niece is too fascinating, tiny, red, 
squirming ! I have never been on in- 
timate terms with so young a baby be- 
fore, and cannot be content to hold her but a lit- 
tle while. I want to hold her for a long time and 
realize her individuality, but the nurse disap- 
proves, so I continue to find her fascinating. 

Oct. ^oth. I am having a delightful time. Aunt 
is very good and kind. She is the widow of Mam- 
ma's brother, James L. Petigru, who was a distin- 
guished lawyer and codified the Laws of this State. 
He died in the midst of the War, heartbroken, 
they said, at the suffering and distress for his own 
people that he saw ahead. Poor Mamma, it was 
awfully hard on her, for she simply adored Uncle, 
and Papa was as strongly in favour of secession as 
Uncle was opposed to it. So those she loved best 
were absolutely opposed to each other. Her opin- 
ions went with Papa, but she felt intense sym- 
pathy for Uncle, and felt it killed him. The Yan- 
kee Officers have been ordered by the Government 
[298] 



AUNT PETIGRU — MY FIRST GERMAN 

to treat Aunt with the greatest consideration. She 
has but to signify a wish for it to be gratified at 
once. She was a great beauty and has never for- 
gotten it through years of terrible ill health. 
Uncle spoiled and humoured her always, and now 
it seems the most natural thing in the world to 
have everything she wants, have officers at her 
beck and call and live in luxury, when every one 
else is almost in want. But she is most generous 
with her comforts and luxuries, having Nannie, 
her maid and nurse, seek out her friends who are 
ill or in need and sending them baskets from her 
stores. She does not hesitate to say that she did 
not in any way sympathize with Uncle's opinion 
as to the War. She is always in bed, and with a 
much befrilled cap which only reveals a few curls 
of light yellow hair, receives the officers sent to 
her for command. She has a very small single 
bed quite low to the floor and looks Hke a child, 
and speaks in a high childish voice, most authori- 
tatively. She has what she calls a **Lazy Scis- 
sors." It shoots out to a length of about three 
feet and picks up things she wants. Nannie, her 
black maid, rules everything and everybody, and 
I am thankful Nannie happens to approve of me 
for it helps the situation. Aunt has a critical eye 

[299] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

and loves beauty, and I am not pretty, but she 
also loves to laugh, and I can amuse her by my 
accounts of all my adventures when I go out, for 
I never stir from the house without some adven- 
ture. Just now I am trying to get Aunt to con- 
sent to my going to a party which is to be given 
by the young men at Miss Annie Savage Hey- 
ward's house, corner of Lamboll and Legare. It 
is the first big dance given in town and I want to 
go, but Aunt has not as yet given her consent. 
Mamma has gone in the country for a while and 
there is no appeal from Aunt's decision. I have 
got Nannie on my side. The trouble is there is 
no chaperone to go with me, only my Cousin 
Charley Porcher will come for me and bring me 
home. He fought all through the War and came 
out alive, and I'm sure that makes him fit for any- 
thing. 

Nov. $th. Well, I went to the party and had a 
grand time, no refreshments but water, but a 
beautifully waxed floor, a great big cool room, 
that is, two opening into each other with folding 
doors, and a great wide piazza all round outside 
to walk in after dancing. But first I must tell 
about my getting off. There had been no ques- 
tion of dress, I was thankful for that. Aunt 
[300] 



AUNT PETIGRU — MY FIRST GERMAN 

seemed to think of course I had a ball dress. So 
when I was arrayed in my best black merino skirt 
— I was still in half mourning for Papa — and my 
bleached pink paper cambric baby waist, and Aunt 
sent Nannie to say she wished to see me before I 
went, I trembled. However, I summoned up all 
the diablerie in me to meet the ordeal. Really, I 
felt most uncertain of my appearance already, but 
I would not show it for worlds. When I went in 
to the darkened room, Aunt ordered Nannie to 
light up everything, candles and lamps, and as I 
stood trembling inside, while the lights asserted 
themselves. Aunt surveyed me and burst forth. 

*' Bessie, you are a fool ! My God, that is no 
costume for a party ! You look more like a funeral 
than a big fashionable dance ! Come here and let 
me see that skirt. My God, it is really what I 
thought, black merino ! Plain and full ! You 
cannot leave my house for a party dressed like 
that!" 

"Aunt," I said, "If you say another word I will 
begin to cry and then my costume will be lighted 
up with a red nose to please you." This made her 
laugh and I went on. "You have not looked at 
the exquisite lace on my bodice. Mrs. Pringle said 
this was an ideal young girl's waist." 

[301 ] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

She looked, examined the lace, and relented. 
"Nannie, open that top drawer to the left and get 
out that set of old Mexican silver. This child 
must have something to relieve this stern effect." 

Nannie arrived with a box and Aunt took out 
and had me put on a pair of broad silver brace- 
lets like manacles of fish scales, a string of silver 
beads round my neck which though not plump is 
called pretty, and in my ears carved silver ear- 
rings about three inches long and weighing about 
a ton apiece. Then Aunt surveyed me once more, 
gave me a little push and said, "Now go, all this 
excitement has made me feel very ill. Do behave 
yourself and don't cry if you don't get a partner." 

Thankfully I escaped and went down to Char- 
ley, who was tired waiting for me. He was all 
admiration of my appearance, but Aunt had in- 
jected a new and fearful thought to my mind. 
"Not get a partner," what an awful thought! I 
had always had my choice of partners, but now 
that I came to think, I had been away from town 
all the years of the War. Papa and Mamma had 
never allowed me to accept invitations to stay 
with my friends who had remained in Charleston. 
It was said that society was too informal and too 
gay for them to be willing for me to join it. Most 
[302] 



AUNT PETIGRU — MY FIRST GERMAN 

of the dear boy friends whom I used to dance with 
had been killed or disabled, and I really was going 
into an unknown company. I suppose it was well 
that Aunt's words had made me realize this, for it 
might have come with too great a shock without 
that. As we went in, Charley gave me my only 
pair of well worn slippers which he had carried, 
and I went into the dressing room and, taking off 
my walking boots, (an awful pair of English shoes, 
miles too big for me and stuffed with cotton, which 
I had worn for two years, we having been lucky to 
get them through the blockade), put them on. 
Then I braced myself up and went upstairs with 
Charley. Miss Annie Heyward received us and 
put me at my ease at once by asking if I could 
play a galop, for none of the girls who could play 
had arrived yet, and so she had to ask me etc., 
etc. I was delighted and went with alacrity to 
the piano, which was arranged most considerately, 
so that you faced the dancers, and you could enjoy 
watching them as you played. This was my forte, 
dance music. In Plantersville they said I could 
make any one dance, and it gave me almost as 
much pleasure as dancing itself. Soon the floor 
was full of whirling couples, and I had a chance 
to see how many of them I knew and how many 
[303 ] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

I didn't know. Alas, the latter were vastly in the 
majority, but, I reflected with joy, when ever I 
had no partner, / could play. So when Miss Hey- 
ward came to reHeve me I was in a gale of spirits, 
and C. came to claim a promised dance; so I went 
through that, though with reluctance, for he was 
not as good a dancer as he had been fighter. I 
got on tant hien que mal, until glasses of water 
were handed round and people began to settle for 
*'the German." This was unknown to me, and I 
watched the bringing in of chairs and the happy 
couples placing themselves around the big room. 
Mr. Joe Manigault, a great society man and ex- 
quisite dancer from "before the War," was to 
lead. Nearly all the chairs were filled and I was 
still at the piano. Then I saw Mr. M. take one 
young man after another into the piazza and walk 
them up and down, and I knew he was trying to 
induce them to let him present them to me so 
that they could ask me for the German. I could 
see them glance at me surreptitiously through the 
window, while walking. One after another re- 
turned to the room, not having yielded to Mr. M. 
At last, he found one who valiantly came forward, 
was introduced and asked for the pleasure, and I 
accepted with great alacrity, and never began to 
[304] 



AUNT PETIGRU — MY FIRST GERMAN 

tease him about having ignominiously allowed 
Mr. M. to choose his partner for him until the 
German was well under way. And then I pointed 
to the row of "stags," as they were called who 
would not take partners, relying on being "taken 
out," being all good dancers. Then between 
times they could retire to the piazza and smoke. 
He was bright and able to answer my ungracious 
attacks, so that I got quite as good as I gave. 
Add to this that, as soon as any one danced with 
me, being thrown together in the figures of the 
German, they always wanted to dance with me 
again, and soon all the stags came up and were 
introduced, eager to be "taken out" by me; but 
nay, nay, I let them ornament the wall as far as 
I was concerned. And oh I had a glorious time, 
Mr. M. himself selecting me very often to lead the 
figures with him. He had to tell me just what to 
do, but I soon learned, and when it was my turn 
to play he would not let me, but suggested to one 
sweet quiet girl that played very well that she 
should take my turn, saying I had played twice 
my share earlier in the evening. We broke up at 12 
exactly, as all the men are working hard and must 
get their sleep. They have formed a Cotillion 
Club and are going to give a dance once a month 

[305] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

and I have been asked by three men for the next 
German. My ears are so sore from my adorn- 
ments that I don't think I will wear them again, 
though they are beautiful. Aunt was delighted 
with my account of the party, and laughed and 
chuckled over my first German partner, saying, 
"Men are fools, and always will be." 



[306] 



CHAPTER XXIX 

MAMMA'S SCHOOL 

Dec. I St, 1865. 

PREPARATIONS for the school are going on 
apace. We have moved into our house and 
it is too beautiful. I had forgotten how 
lovely it was. Fortunately, the beautiful paper 
in the second floor, the two drawing rooms and 
Mamma's room, has not been at all injured. The 
school is to open Jan. ist and, strange to say, 
Mamma is receiving letters from all over the State 
asking terms etc. I thought there would be no 
apphcations, every one being so ruined by the 
War, but Mamma's name and personality make 
people anxious to give their daughters the benefit 
of her influence; and, I suppose, the people in the 
cotton country are not so completely ruined and 
without money as we rice planters of the low coun- 
try are. Be it as it may, the limit Mamma put of 
ten boarding pupils is nearly reached already. 
My cousin, Marianna Porcher, will be the head 
teacher of French and Literature; she is wonder- 
fully clever; I will have the younger girls, and I 
certainly will have my hands full, for there are a 
[307] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

great many applications for the entry of day- 
scholars of the younger set. Mamma will teach all 
the classes of History, for which she is admirably 
fitted. Prof. Gibbes from the Charleston College 
will teach Mathematics and Latin to the advanced 
scholars; but I want Mile. Le Prince, who is a 
first class French teacher, engaged to live in the 
house as well as teach. There is no way of learn- 
ing French equal to speaking it. But Mamma very 
truly says we must go slowly, and be sure we are 
making, before we expand. I am frightened to 
death. I know girls and have been to Boarding 
School and Mamma's plan of no rules except those 
of an ordinary well-ordered, well-conducted home, 
seems to me perfectly impracticable; but, having 
once said that, I do not dare argue the matter. I 
am amazed to see how clever Mamma is. She 
wanted to send C. to College in Virginia, his con- 
stitution has been much injured by the heavy 
marching and privation endured in the Army at 
i6. Carrying that heavy knapsack on those kill- 
ing, long marches without food has given him a 
stoop and a weary look in his beautiful hazel eyes; 
but it was impossible for her to borrow the ;S200.oo 
necessary to send him. She thought the change 
of climate from this relaxing low country air would 
[308] 



MAMMA'S SCHOOL 



do him good, and enable him to build up; but, as 
she could not get the money, she has placed him 
at the Charleston College, and I am truly thank- 
ful to have him at home. Only, restless, Cassan- 
dra-like, I see a problem ahead; he is so very good- 
looking ! 

March 21st, 1866. Here we are, almost at the 
end of our first three months of school, and it has 
been and is a grand success ! I have not had time 
to write a line here because every second of my 
time is occupied, and oh, I am so happy ! In the 
first place, I find I can teach ! And I love it ! I 
have a class of thirteen girls ranging from twelve 
to fifteen, and, if you please, I teach them every- 
thing ! except history which Mamma teaches. They 
are most of them very bright, dehghtful girls, and 
mind my least word, even look. Only once have 
I had any trouble. I kept a girl in for an hour 
after school because she had not pretended to 
study her lesson that day, and the next day I had 
a note from her Mother to say that she was 
shocked at her daughter being singled out for 
punishment, and requesting that it should not hap- 
pen again. I returned a note saying that I also 
requested earnestly that it should not happen 
again, that M. come to her class without having 
[309] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

studied her lesson; should it happen a second time, 
the punishment would have to be much more 
severe. I had no reply to that, but M., who is 
very bright tho' very spoiled, thought wisest to 
study in future. A Mother, who had taught in 
her youth and who knew of this passage at arms, 
wrote me a note of sympathy, saying, "A teacher 
must be prepared to swallow buckets full of ad- 
ders." This was so very strong and so beyond 
my experience, that I did not answer it, and thus 
far I can truly say I have not swallowed a single 
mosquito even. 

I have a little time today and I want to put 
down what I do every day, I really have not added 
it up even in my mind. First of all, I trim and 
fill all the lamps, twenty in all, for we have no 
light but kerosene in the house; the fixtures are all 
there, but gas is so expensive; then I practise a 
half hour before going into school at nine; school 
lasts until two; there is no general recess, each 
class going into the garden for their recess at a 
different time; then I give one or two music les- 
sons every day, that takes more out of me than 
anything. Once a week, Mr. Hambruch gives me 
a lesson, from pure goodness and love of music; 
for, of course, I could not afford it. He taught 
me for years when I was young, and when he 
[310] 



MAMMA'S SCHOOL 



offered to give me a spare hour he had, I was too 
glad. Yesterday I went to him almost crying, 
and told him how badly I felt at taking money for 
girls who were not learning any thing. He laughed 
and answered, "Oh, Miss A., you must not mind 
that. We music teachers, if we only taught the 
ones that learn, we would starve." 

That was a great surprise and consolation to 
me, for he is the very best music teacher in Charles- 
ton, and I was so proud of his saying, "We music 
teachers." Of course I only charge a quarter of 
what he charges for lessons and people have so 
little money that I have a good many pupils, as 
Mr. H. was so good as to give me a certificate as 
to my capacity to teach. I make every stitch of 
clothing that I wear, and that takes up every 
spare moment; add to all this that I go into soci- 
ety, and enjoy myself fiercely. 

We have ten delightful girls as boarding pupils, 
from all over the State. They are preternaturally 
well behaved, and Mamma's plan of its being really 
a home, with no rules, is succeeding perfectly. 
My dear, pretty little sister is a kind of lead horse 
in the team, and as she walks straight the rest fol- 
low. But they really are exceptionally nice lady- 
like girls who treat Mamma like a queen. 

C. is the greatest help to Mamma, and, so far, 
[311] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

has kept his eyes to himself. He is a wonder. 
He does all the marketing on his way to College ! 
And that is no small thing. Beef is 50 c. a pound 
and mutton in proportion. C. sits at the foot of 
the table and carves and helps one dish of meat 
while Mamma carves the other. He is as solemn 
and well behaved as a judge, and though the girls 
adore him, it is in secret, so all goes well. 

The "Young Ladies," contrary to all my ideas, 
are allowed to receive visitors Friday, Saturday 
and Sunday evenings, when J. and I also have 
visitors, and Mamma sits in the room, sometimes 
talking with us, sometimes reading; but the eve- 
nings are very gay and pleasant, and, I am forced 
to admit, have no demoralizing effect. On the 
contrary, their manners and deportment have 
visibly improved. 

Mamma looks perfectly lovely, as she sits reading 
in her plain black frock and widow's cap. She is 
a little over fifty, but her hair is brown and curly 
and her complexion as smooth and unwrinkled as 
a girl's, only she is very white and seldom has a 
colour, as she used to do. She is a great reader 
and one of my friends, who has a good library and 
also reviews the new books, and so gets them, 
brings her some book of great interest every time 
[312] 



MAMMA'S SCHOOL 



he comes to make me a visit, and they talk a great 
deal together. Sometimes I get quite jealous, for 
I do not read deep books. I mean I would not 
care to if I had time. I never have time to read 
at all. 

I must explain here how the great and unex- 
pected pleasure of going into society came to me. 
I had quite given up all hope of that joy, for once 
when I asked mamma about my going out some- 
times, she seemed quite shocked, as though it were 
an absolute impossibility, so I never said anything 
more about it. But after the school was well 
started, the son of my father's friend, Nicholas 
Williams (the same whose family had been so 
wonderfully good and generous to us, lending us 
Crowley Hill as a home for the whole war, and 
lavishing the products of their farm and garden 
upon us), brought his two beautiful daughters, one 
barely fifteen, the other seventeen; and Mrs. Wil- 
liams asked my mother to receive them for French, 
literature, and history only, and expressed the 
wish that they should go into society, as much as 
practicable, as their time would not be fully occu- 
pied by their studies. My mother consented, and 
these delightful girls came, Serena a queenly bru- 
[313] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

nette and Mary a madonna-faced blonde, but it 
was not wise to trust too much to that demure 
expression. When the first invitations came to a 
ball for us all, mamma came to me and said: " Bes- 
sie, you will have to go and chaperon the girls, 
for after the work of the day I am quite unequal 
to going out and sitting up half the night." 

I tried not to show my delight too plainly, but 
answered quietly, that I would do my best in the 
new role of chaperon. We went to the ball, and 
I was very proud of my beauties, and their lovely 
clothes. The acting chaperon was very small, 
very thin, and dressed in a frock she had made 
herself in between times, a little over twenty, and 
nobody thought that she would be able to man- 
age the responsibilities, for the girls were great 
belles from the first moment, but there never was 
the least difficulty or friction; they were well-bred, 
well-trained girls, accustomed to recognize and 
yield to authority; which was for the moment rep- 
resented in the person of their very small, very 
plain chaperon. I soon grew very fond of them. 
They called me "Miss Allston" most carefully. 
Altogether the going into society with them was 
just the last thing necessary to fill my cup of hap- 
piness to the brim. My every faculty was in full 
[314] 



MAMMA'S SCHOOL 



use, and the going out and dancing, instead of 
being a fatigue, took away all sense of fatigue; I 
myself have no doubt but that rhythmic motion 
to music is one of the most restful things in the 
world. I feel quite sure that in the end this will 
be recognized by the medical profession as the 
best cure for nervous diseases. 



[315 



CHAPTER XXX 
THE SCHOOL A SUCCESS 

Charleston^ Januaryy 1867. 

WE are now well on in the second year of 
the school, and it is no longer an ex- 
periment but a great success. Mamma's 
methods and judgment have been fully justified. 
The "young Ladies" have behaved entirely like 
young ladies, and never done any of the things I 
feared. I have the delight of having Mile. Le 
Prince estabHshed in the house, and French the 
language of the school, in a modified way, that is, 
there are no punishments for speaking English, 
but if a girl is really in earnest about learning, she 
speaks French, and if she is not it does not mat- 
ter. I am getting to delight in teaching, and my 
little class learns amazingly. 

April, ^6j. I have had a grand winter; Mary 
and Serena came for a long visit and went out 
during the season. They had the most beautiful 
Paris ball-dresses. It is impossible to describe the 
effect produced by these beautiful women in their 
beautiful costumes. 

Every one was nicely dressed, for all the girls 
[316] 



THE SCHOOL A SUCCESS 



and their mothers had become expert dressmakers, 
with few exceptions. But the frocks were gen- 
erally of the simplest muslins, sweet and fresh, 
but not such as would be worn in the great world 
to a full-dress ball; and when these creations, 
which would have been thought brilliant in any 
ballroom burst upon us, we were filled with ad- 
miration and wonder. 

I had risen to the dignity of two silk dresses 
this year, and felt very grand before the appear- 
ance of the Paris toilets. At the beginning of 
the war, mamma had packed all of Delia's and her 
best clothes, for which she knew they would have 
no use while refugees, in two large trunks, and 
they had been sent up the Pee Dee River to Mor- 
ven in a flat with a load of rice. The flat had 
struck a snag and sunk, and the trunks had 
remained under water a long time, so that almost 
everything was ruined, but in looking over the mass 
of mildewed stuff's, I found two dresses of mamma's, 
which I asked her to give me, as I thought I 
could make something of them. One was a very 
heavy thick black silk, with stripes of satin about 
two inches wide, every two inches apart, the stripes 
running across, or bayadere, as it was called then. 
But this was no longer the fashion; so I ripped up 
[317] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

the very ample full skirt, and after washing it 
three times to get off the stains of the muddy 
river water in which it had lain so long, I sewed 
the breadths together, matching the stripes so ex- 
actly that no one could imagine that it had been 
done. Then I cut the most beautiful long skirt 
by a Paris pattern, gored like an umbrella at the 
top, and flaring out into the most wonderful long 
train, which was stiffened with buckram, so that 
as you danced it slid along the waxed floor, even 
when your partner backed you all over the room; 
then the low-necked waist, which did fit beauti- 
fully, was trimmed with thread lace, and was 
sewed to the skirt. I thought the eff^ect was regal. 
The other was a very heavy purple satin brocaded 
so as to make the effect of a purple satin covered 
with black lace. This was harder to wash and 
cleanse than the black, but I worked at it in the 
holidays, and ended by succeeding in making it 
too a thing of beauty, and felt that I was provided 
with apparel suitable to my character as chap- 
eron. 

My friends were more beautiful than ever this 
season. I had become perfectly devoted to Se- 
rena, and she had showed that she returned the 
feeling, for in sending to Paris for their season's 
[318] 



THE SCHOOL A SUCCESS 



toilets she had sent for six beautifully fine pock- 
et-handkerchiefs for me, with my monogram most 
elaborately embroidered on them, the finest, most 
beautiful handkerchiefs I have had in my long 
life, I have one still just as a memento of her 
affection; beauty, spoiled and adored by men as 
she was, she had to divert some of the cotton 
money sent to Paris from her own finery to give 
me this delight. 

They were not at school this year, and I found 
it much harder to maintain my authority and dig- 
nity with them. Serena was terribly strong, and 
one day when she wanted to do something to 
which I would not consent, she came into my 
room, to make a last appeal to me; I was only 
half dressed, and she picked me up and threw me 
up in the air, and as she caught me, said: "Now 
will you let me ?" I panted out: "Now less than 
ever." She threw me up once more and left the 
room. There was a tale of her wishing to get her 
father's consent to some plan, and holding him 
over the banister of the second-story piazza, say- 
ing she would drop him unless he yielded to her 
will; of course she did not get her wish. She was 
a grand woman, and no wonder she counted her 
victims by scores. 

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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

I wish I had time to tell of my many friends; 
they were all such nice men, who had fought 
through the war, and now were not ashamed to 
take any kind of honest work to enable them to 
help their mothers and sisters. There were lit- 
erally butchers and bakers, and candlestick-mak- 
ers, but all thorough, true gentlemen, and most of 
them beautiful dancers. The only public balls we 
had that year were the three balls given by the 
Cotillion Club. They were in the South Carolina 
Hall, with a fine waxed floor and good band of 
music, but very mild refreshments. 

The private parties were too delightful; the 
young men of the family giving the party always 
waxed the floor, and they became experts in doing 
it, and that was really the sole thing absolutely 
necessary to the success of a party. We were sure 
of good music, for there were four or five girls 
going into society that played delightfully for 
dancing. The refreshments generally consisted of 
rolls, handed in dishes of exquisite china, and 
water in very dainty glasses. At one or two 
houses we had the rare treat of coff^ee, but that 
did not often happen, and when the rolls appeared 
just before the German, they were very welcome, 
and greatly enjoyed, for we were all working hard, 
[320] 



THE SCHOOL A SUCCESS 



and living none too high. In the winter the only 
recreation, except the dancing, was walking on the 
Battery in the afternoon. We made engagements 
for this, just as we did for a German, generally 
with girl friends, for the men at work did not get 
off for the afternoons. A run on the Battery in 
the early dusk, or just at sunset, after a hard day's 
teaching was something heavenly, and when you 
had a friend near enough to enjoy silence nothing 
could be more perfect. Before the war my father 
never let us walk on the Battery on Sunday after- 
noon, for he said it was only fair for the darkies 
to have it that evening, and after the war no one 
walked there that afternoon, for it was thronged 
with negroes. The regular promenade for us that 
afternoon after church, for every one went to 
church morning and afternoon in those days, was 
down a very narrow, rough pavement to the west 
end of Tradd Street, to what was then Chisolm's 
Mill, beyond all the houses, where the street was 
simply a roadway, with the marsh behind, and the 
broad salt river in front. Along the road piles of 
logs and lumber had been dumped here and there. 
To this spot the elite of Charleston wended their 
way, lads and lasses, two and two, and sat on the 
logs in place of benches, and watched the sun 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

slowly sink into the gorgeous clouds, which swal- 
lowed it up all too quickly, proclaiming the end 
of our happy day of Rest. Many a momentous 
conversation was murmured on those logs, with 
the strong, pungent smell of the marshes borne to 
us by the brisk, fresh breezes. Many a life con- 
tract was sealed there. Somehow it was easier to 
speak freely in those surroundings, all telling of 
work and toil, no beauty but God's great lavish 
glory of sun and clouds and river and sky. What 
mattered money and income and fashion ? Surely 
to love God and work and do your duty to the 
best of your ability, holding the strong, firm hand 
of the woman you loved, was to make the best of 
your life, and would insure a blessing upon it. 

No one will ever know how many troths were 
plighted there, nor how many lives, starting out 
with that simple, childlike faith, in the saving 
power of love and duty (that word so greatly 
scorned now), were justified in their confidence, and 
were noble and happy, and have brought up fami- 
lies of whom they may well be proud. I can never 
forget the shock of my first proposal, which took 
place down there. I had worked so hard before 
I left the country to prevent the asking of that 
question, and had succeeded so well, knowing all 
[322] 



THE SCHOOL A SUCCESS 



the time in my secret heart that I had done so 
because I doubted my power to say no with suffi- 
cient firmness if the fateful words were spoken, 
had put all such thoughts out of my mind entirely; 
I went out as a chaperon, enjoying myself as a 
married woman would do; I knew there was only 
one man in the world that I would ever marry, 
and not quite sure that I could even marry him, 
but I forgot that other people did not know that. 
I had a great deal of attention and a great many 
friends, but never thought of them as possible 
lovers; so when one evening, sitting on a pile of 
squared logs which were far from comfortable, 
watching the tide come in, with the most glorious 
sunset clouds reflected in the water, and we had 
stopped talking for some time, and my thoughts 
were far away, Mr. Blank asked me to marry him, 
I just gasped with horror and exclaimed: "Oh, 
how awful ! How could you spoil all our delight- 
ful friendship in this way! I am so distressed !" 
But he said: "Miss Bessie, this is very extraordi- 
nary conduct on your part ! What did you think 
that I was coming to see you all the time for, and 
playing chess regularly once a week for, and fol- 
lowing you about all the time at the parties, and 
doing everything in the world I could for you for ? 
[323 ] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

I have never cared for any one else, and I never 
thought you could fail to understand my devo- 
tion. 

**0h," I repeated, "it is too awful ! You know, 
your dear sister was my best friend, and I liked 
you because of that, and I thought that was what 
made you Hke me, and I liked to be with you be- 
cause you looked Hke her and reminded me of her; 
I have missed her so ever since she died. But 
now I see how blind and selfish I have been." We 
had an awful walk home and parted at the steps, 
and he never came to see me again. 

As the days passed and he did not come to see 
me, mademoiselle, who had become devoted to 
me and watched my visitors with intense interest, 
said to me: '*0u est done ce bon M. Blanc? II 
ne vient plus ! J'espere que vous ne I'avez pas 
renvoye ! II etait si bel homme, et si gentil ! Je 
ne pense pas que vous ayez la chance d'attirer un 
si bon parti encore!" 

This experience was a blow, and destroyed my 
confidence in and enjoyment of my friends; my 
eyes had been opened, and I was more careful in 
accepting men's friendship as if they were girls. 
Nearly all the men in town fell victims to my 
beautiful friends, and when they left to go to their 
[324] 



THE SCHOOL A SUCCESS 



new home in Virginia things were very flat, and 
the men very gloomy. My diary is at an end and 
I am very hazy and uncertain about dates. When 
we went this summer for the hoHdays up to my 
brother, at the log house in Plantersville, we took 
Mile, le Prince with us, as she had nowhere to 
go, and I devoted a good deal of my time to study- 
ing French with her. We read "Les Travailleurs 
de la Mer," and I remember very distinctly her 
disgust and disappointment; she would exclaim: 
"Appeler cela un roman ! Ou est done I'amour V 
Never having had any love-afi^air of her own, she 
was unwilling to read any book which did not 
supply her craving for love-stories, and she saw 
no beauty in Victor Hugo's masterpiece. 

I cannot be sure, but I think it was this winter 
that General Sickles was put in command of 
Charleston. He took a big house in Charlotte 
Street, and soon after he got estabhshed there he 
brought his little daughter to mamma and asked 
to enter her at the school as a day-scholar, and 
mamma accepted her pleasantly as such. But it 
made quite a commotion; the feeling of many in the 
community was that mamma should have refused 
to take her. Those who were so bold as to speak 
to her on the subject were careful not to repeat 
[325] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

their indiscretion. One lady, however, was bold 
enough to say that she did not desire such associa- 
tion for her daughter, and my mother told her 
then she had best remove her daughter from 
school, which she did. There never was a more 
pathetic little figure than that of the new scholar; 
very pale, very thin and tall, about ten she looked, 
and dressed in the deepest, plainest black, with 
none of the natural gaiety of a child; it was said 
she had just lost her mother, but there was no 
way of getting behind the wall of childish reserve 
which this young spirit had been able to build 
around her inner being. My mother taught her 
altogether herself, for she did not fit into any of 
the classes, and mamma was deeply interested in 
her. 

The last year we were in Charleston the St. 
Cecilia Society began to revive, and determined 
to give two balls. This was a great event, and 
every one began to think about a ball dress. I, 
being like the immortal Mrs. Gilpin, who, "though 
on pleasure bent, had a frugal mind," had bought 
a good piece of white alpaca, and constructed a 
frock of that, trimmed with handsome scarlet silk- 
velvet ribbon, which had trimmed an opera-cloak 
of my sister's, made in Paris, which had gone 
down in the river with the other fine clothes. It 
[326] 



THE SCHOOL A SUCCESS 



was a miracle that the velvet survived the ordeal, 
and was still beautiful after being steamed, and I 
was delighted with my frock when it was finished. 
Mamma had not ever seemed to think about my 
clothes, but the idea of a St, Cecilia Ball roused 
her to ask: "Bessie, have you a suitable dress for 
the approaching ball ?" 

"Yes, mamma, I have a very nice frock." 

"What is it?" 

"A white alpaca trimmed with red velvet, and 
I have covered my slippers with red velvet to 
match." 

Mamma exclaimed in horror: "An alpaca dress 
for a St. Cecilia Ball ! Impossible ! I cannot con- 
sent to your going so unsuitably dressed." 

Then I burst out most improperly: "It is too 
late now to say that. I have spent my hard- 
earned money for the frock, and it is finished. I 
got it because it would last better than a muslin, 
and when it gets dirty I can have it dyed for a 
day frock. You used to take great interest in 
Delia's clothes and choose them all, because she 
was pretty, but as I am ugly you have never cared 
what I put on." 

Poor mamma was terribly shocked, and said so; 
then she said: "I certainly will see that you have 
a proper outfit for this occasion." 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

True to her word, she went out, bought and 
had made by Mrs. Cummings, the best dressmaker 
in town, a real ball dress. White tulle over white 
silk, and trimmed with wreaths of little fine white 
flowers. When I went to try it on I could scarcely 
believe my eyes, and found it hard to sleep that 
night for thinking of it. Mrs. Cummings prom- 
ised to have it sent by seven o'clock Thursday, 
the night of the ball. I waited and looked 
anxiously; eight came, no dress, and finally at 
nine I sent the others off to the ball and went to 
bed. I felt I had been well punished for my 
wicked outburst of temper; but perhaps few can 
understand how I suffered, for few, I think, have 
the intense love of pleasure which I had in my 
youth. I could, and did, throw myself, heart and 
soul into my work, whatever it was, but I threw 
myself with equal vehemence into my play when 
the work was over. In two weeks' time came the 
next St. CeciUa, and I went and wore my beautiful 
ball dress, but I had a very chastened feehng all 
the evening. The frock was a dream, quite short, 
with little pleatings of tulle, from the waist to the 
bottom; the waist fitted perfectly, and mamma had 
fulfilled her promise of an outfit, for she had bought 
white kid slippers (one and a half was then my 
number) and a pair of white kid gloves, some- 
[328] 



THE SCHOOL A SUCCESS 



thing I had never even dreamed of; so for once I 
was properly attired according to the ideas of the 
great world, and mamma was very pleased when I 
went to show myself to her before going. We still 
walked to all entertainments in our boots, our 
slippers, carefully wrapped up, being intrusted to 
our escort, who received them with a kind of rev- 
erence mingled with joy, at having committed to 
his care a part of one's vital belongings. This was 
only for real balls, however; at the little informal 
dances which we had very often, we danced in our 
walking shoes, always waxing the soles thoroughly 
before going into the dancing-room. This impor- 
tant service was also rendered by one's escort, and 
was regarded almost in the light of an accolade. 
In the rather laborious life that I led, never any 
fire in my bedroom, never any hot water, I suf- 
fered terribly from chilblains, and my hands and 
feet were often greatly swollen, so that I could 
not get on my shoes; then, instead of staying 
away, I asked mamma if she would lend me her 
best shoes. This was mamma's only extravagance; 
she was a very tall woman with beautiful hands 
and feet, long and narrow, and common shoes did 
not fit her at all, so she had her boots made to 
order, at what to us seemed an enormous price; 
she wore fives, much too long for her, as she liked 
I 329 ] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

them that way, but fitting perfectly in every other 
way. I could see that it was a supreme sacrifice 
on her part to lend me those, her most precious 
possession, but she consented, and I went off to 
a dance at the Dessaussure's, arrayed in my black 
silk and mamma's shoes, and enjoyed my comfort- 
able feet immensely; I had stuffed the toes with 
cotton, as it was only in the length they were too 
big, and when people stepped on my foot, as was 
often the case that first evening that I wore them, 
as I had not got accustomed to managing feet 
so much longer than usual, they would apologize 
humbly and hope they had not hurt me too 
badly, I always answered: "You have not hurt me 
at all; that was only my shoe you stepped on, not 
my foot" — to their great amusement. One day 
a man said: "I was asked a conundrum that is 
going the rounds last night: what young lady has 
the biggest shoe and the smallest foot in town?" 
All this is very trivial and very silly, but as I make 
the effort to recall the past, all these foolish de- 
tails come, and I just put them down. 



[330 



T 



CHAPTER XXXI 

1868 

t d "AHIS was a very happy year to me and to 
mamma. My little sister made her debut, 
and she was so pretty and so charming 
that she was greatly admired and had a great 
many adorers. This added immensely to my plea- 
sure in going out, and I think it was a great reHef 
to mamma to have another very pretty daugh- 
ter to be proud of. Two or three of the older 
girls were allowed to go to parties, too, and they 
were a charming lot, abounding in youth and joy. 
I cannot remember all, but some I was espe- 
cially fond of come to me: Rosa Evans, a tiny lit- 
tle thing, as bright as a steel trap, with very fair 
skin and brown hair almost touching the floor, 
and so thick that it was hard for her to dispose of 
it on her small head; she had many serious ad- 
mirers; she came from Society Hill, where every 
one had been so good to us during the war; Sophie 
Bonham, a charmingly pretty brunette, as quiet 
as a mouse, but none the less having many admir- 
ers, Charley and herself being great friends, he 
having by a miracle escaped without a broken 
[331 ] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

heart from the all-conquering Serena; then came 
Maggie Jordan, who though not nearly so hand- 
some, looked very Hke her sister Victoria, who had 
been one of the beauties of madame's school when 
I was a little girl, and who was blown up on a 
steamer on the Mississippi when on her wedding- 
trip. I can remember the faces and individuali- 
ties of others, but their names are too vague to 
attempt to record them. All this time I was too 
happy and too busy sometimes to be able to sleep ! 
It was the greatest joy to me to have Jinty going 
out with me, and to see her so much admired; she 
had many charming steadies, and then we had 
some friends in common; I remember at this mo- 
ment one man, older than the majority of our 
friends. Bayard Clinch, such a delightful man; he 
was her admirer but my friend. Altogether we 
had a very gay time. My own special friend was 
working so hard on the rice-plantation in the 
country that he did not very often get to town, 
and then, though I always knew when I entered 
a ballroom if he was there, without seeing him, by 
a queer little feeling, I always treated him with 
great coolness and never gave him more than one 
dance in an evening, for there were two kind of 
people I could not bear to dance with — the peo- 
[332] 



1868 



pie whom I disliked and those I liked too much, and 
he was the only one in the second class. Besides, 
he had learned to dance in Germany, and had prac- 
tised it at Heidelberg, and shot about the floor in 
an extraordinary manner, which endangered the 
equilibrium of the quiet couples, and that made 
me furious. 

Charley was a beautiful dancer, and very popu- 
lar, and I am afraid something of a flirt, with his 
great, sleepy, hazel eyes, but he was most sedate 
as an escort, as solemn as a judge, and the girls 
minded his injunctions absolutely in all social 
matters, which was a great mercy, for the etiquette 
in their home towns was by no means as strict as 
that dictated by St. Cecilia standards. 

Before the school term was over this spring I 
received an invitation from Mrs. David Williams, 
to spend two months with Serena and Mary at 
their farm near Staunton, Virginia, which I ac- 
cepted with delight, and began the preparation at 
once for my summer outfit, which would have to 
be a little more elaborate than what I prepared 
for a summer at Plantersville. When the time 
came for leaving, my uncle Chancellor Lesesne 
took me to the station and put me on the train. 
He gave me many directions as to my conduct on 
[333 ] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

the journey, as it was looked upon as a very haz- 
ardous departure from custom for me to make 
the journey alone; among other charges that he 
gave he said: "My dear niece, let nothing induce 
you to let a young man speak to you ! It would 
be most improper to enter into conversation with 
any man, but the natural questions which you 
might have to ask of an official of the road, whom 
you will recognize by his uniform." Then he bade 
me an affectionate and solemn farewell, which 
started me with a lump in my throat. The end 
of the eight months of teaching, not to speak of 
my other activities, always found me in a shat- 
tered condition. Toward the end of the last 
month the dropping of a slate startled me into 
disgraceful tears, which were almost impossible 
to stop. I used to be quite touched at the great 
care the girls took not to drop a book or even a 
pencil, and those who had annoyed me the most 
by their recklessness in this respect were the most 
careful now; this was wonderful, for I was awfully 
cross and irritable. After settHng myself in my 
place, and getting out my book and fan and every- 
thing else I could possibly need. Uncle Henry's 
words came to my mind with renewed force. I 
had insisted that I was not at all afraid, and would 
rather travel alone than waste two weeks of my 
[334] 



1868 

good holiday and invitation, waiting until a party 
was going on to Virginia, who said they would take 
charge of me. But Uncle Henry had succeeded 
in making me feel that I was courting danger, dis- 
aster, and insult, and my strained nerves were de- 
lighted to seize and elaborate that theme, so that 
when we got to the place where I had to change 
cars for Staunton (I am not sure, but I think it 
was Alexandria), I got out and stood by my trunk 
(which had to be rechecked here) in perfect de- 
spair; a very nice-looking, gentlemanly young man 
came up and said: "Can I do anything for you ?" 
With the last remnants of composure, I said, "No, 
thank you," and watched him with dismay dis- 
appear into the car. At last the conductor came 
and stood a second at the door of the car and 
called: "All 'board!" I made a dart to the car, 
saying to myself, "Let the trunk go; I don't 
care," and got up the steps and into the car, to 
find not a seat, so I stood in the middle of the 
crowded car, with my heavy blue veil down to 
conceal the marks of agitation on my face, and 
my valise in my hand. Fortunately, the con- 
ductor rushed through, and I managed to say: 
"My trunk is out there." In his great haste he 
looked where I pointed, rushed to the baggage- 
car and sent two men, who ran, seized the trunk, 
[335] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

and pitched it aboard just as the train started. 
The conductor came back and asked me why un- 
der the sun I had not spoken to him before, **that 
it was a very near thing, and that if the trunk 
had been left there, in all probability it would 
never have been seen again, as things were pretty 
unsettled in these parts." I was in no condition 
to enter into conversation; my throat ached so 
that when I tried to tell the man that I had not 
spoken to him because I had not seen him, he had 
trouble in understanding me. The rest of my 
journey was short, fortunately, and my hearty re- 
ception restored my equanimity, but it was some 
time before I had recovered my voice and spirits 
enough to be able to narrate all my experiences, 
to the great amusement of the party. I tell all 
this because it is hard to believe that such a state 
of things could have ever been possible, when we 
see the ease and aplomb with which very young 
girls move about the world, from end to end lit- 
erally. But that was fifty-three years ago, and 
surely there is no one who would not say that we 
have made a wonderful advance in sense. 

The home life of this family always remains in 
my mind as a beautiful picture, each member do- 
ing his or her own part as perfectly as it could be 
done. Mr. Williams had shown his foresight and 
8336 ] 



1868 

common sense in an uncommon way, for during 
the war, when it was by no means necessary, as 
they were wealthy, he had insisted that his daugh- 
ters (who were attending a school kept by the 
De Choiseul family and were having a first-class 
education) should be taught to cook and to wash, 
for he said that to him it seemed likely that they 
would have much more use for these domestic arts 
than for the more ornamental branches; the com- 
bination had been altogether charming. Finding 
his property all gone, making it impossible to 
spend his winters in Florida and the summers in 
the mountains at their beautiful place at Flat 
Rock, he determined to sell both these delightful 
homes, not being willing for his family to live alto- 
gether in the enervating climate of Florida, and 
there was no chance of making a living at Flat 
Rock. So he sold them and bought a farm in Vir- 
ginia, where they could spend winter and summer 
in a fine climate, and where he could cultivate the 
land and make a living. It had been almost im- 
possible to bring on their handsome furniture, and 
it would have been most unsuitable to this farm- 
house, so he had a workshop in which he manu- 
factured the most delightful rustic chairs and 
couches and dressing-tables, which with pretty 
chintz cushions and curtains made the interior 
[337] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

fascinating and unique. I would like to run on 
and give a full description of my perfect visit; but 
I must hasten to a close; only one little thing I 
must tell. Soon after I arrived we were invited to 
a dance. As I was sitting up in my room, reading, 
as I always did in the morning while the girls went 
to do their respective duties in the household — 
for they would not let me help in the smallest way, 
saying I was there for rest and must have it, and 
after a short struggle I gave in completely — 
Serena came in and asked what I was going to 
wear to the dance that night; I answered, my 
barege frock. "Oh, no, wear your white muslin, 
please." I answered truly that it was not fresh 
enough, as I had worn it constantly before leaving 
home and had not had time to have it done up. 
Nothing would content her until I took it out for 
her to look at; then, to my surprise, she said: 
"Why, that is quite fresh enough; I will take it 
down for Mollie to smooth, and it will do nicely." 
Of course I yielded, as I always did to Serena in 
the end, but I wondered over it, for the dress was 
really dirty. In the afternoon, when I came up 
to get ready, there was my frock spread out on 
the bed, beautifully done up ! I flew down to the 
kitchen to thank Mollie, but she said: "You 
needn't to thank me, ma'am; shure an' 'twas Miss 
[338] 



1868 

Serena as don it; she washed it, an' she starched 
it, and she i'oned it, an' her just drippin' with the 
sweat." I was overcome; to think of this beauty 
and belle, adored and spoiled by so many, doing 
this in order that her work-weary, plain little 
friend should look her best, for the barege was a 
pretty, nice new frock, but she did not think as 
becoming. I think such friendship is rare. I was 
to go to Baltimore for a short visit when I left the 
farm, and it was decided that I needed another 
frock; after discussing the important matter thor- 
oughly Mrs. Williams said she thought a black 
silk was what I should have; I quailed at the ex- 
pense of such a thing, but she said: "Bessie, you 
send and buy the silk and I will make it up." So 
I sent and got ten yards of beautiful black silk, 
and my wonderful hostess cut, fitted, and made a 
most stylish walking-suit, the very joy of my 
heart. Of course, I helped with the sewing, but 
I could never have undertaken so handsome a 
costume alone. I left my dear friends with tears; 
it was leaving peace and joy and love behind. 



[339 



CHAPTER XXXII 
CHICORA WOOD 

March, 1869. 

I AM holding on to every moment of my full 
happy life, for this is to be our last year in 
Charleston. Mamma has applied for her 
dower, and when it is assigned her, we will move 
into the country, as Charlie is to graduate this 
spring at the college, and Jinty's education is 
complete, and Mamma prefers the country where 
Charlie can make a Hving by planting rice. Every 
one is happy over it but me; I cannot bear the 
thought of giving up my full life; but I try not to 
think about it until it comes, but to enjoy the 
present without alloy. Anyway we would have 
to give up this beautiful house for the creditors of 
the estate want to sell it. 

I have so many dehghtful friends; one specially 
who has actually taught me to love poetry, by his 
persistence in reading it to me. I do believe I 
have always liked it in my heart, for among my 
most cherished books from the time I was four- 
teen are Chaucer's Canterbury Tales given me by 
my first hero Cousin Johnston Pettigrew, and a 
[340] 



CHICORA WOOD 



little fat leather-bound copy of Homer's Iliad, I 
never moved without these two. Then I liked 
Evangeline, and Hiawatha, but I never could get 
up any enthusiasm for The Lady of the Lake, so 
I had got into the habit of saying with a certain 
pride that I did not like poetry. 

April. Every Friday evening Mr. Sass comes 
and we read Italian together, which is delightful. 
I have studied a little alone, and when I was 
about thirteen, to every one's great amusement, 
I used to take an hour's lesson in the afternoon, 
once a week, from M. Pose. I have always loved 
languages and Italian is especially beautiful, and in 
singing it is such a help to know it. Now we are 
reading Goldoni's plays, and the Italian is so sim- 
ple, it is very easy to read, very different from the 
Jerusalem, which we read first. My mind is so 
eager for knowledge, it is positively uncanny, it 
springs forward so to meet things, I fear me it is 
more than usually true of me that "Knowledge 
comes but wisdom lingers." 

I need ballast so much, if I had only had a 
man's education. A good course of mathematics 
under a severe master would help me greatly, and 
I need help. 

The only form of amusement that the young 

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men could afford was boating, and soon after we 
began the school, Charlie sent to the plantation 
and got Brother to send down to him one of the 
rowboats. Rainbow, the pride of the plantation, 
had been lent to the Confederate Government, for 
use on the fortifications and we never got her back, 
but Brother sent the next best and it was a fine 
rowboat. Charlie named it the Countess, and he 
and his friends had great pleasure in her; Tom 
Frost, Arthur Mazyck, William Jervey, James 
Lesesne and himself were the crew, and they in- 
vited their girl friends to the most delightful moon- 
light rows. They went on long fishing trips on 
Saturdays and all their holidays, coming back 
happy but their faces pealing from sunburn. The 
exercise kept them in good health and spirits. 

May, 1869. Things are moving on rapidly. 
When Mamma applied for her dower, she said she 
would take a sixth of the real estate in fee simple, 
instead of a third for life only; she has received in- 
formation that the creditors appointed a board of 
Appraisers, to value the property and decide, and 
after careful valuation they have decided that the 
plantation, Chicora Wood, where she has always 
lived will constitute a sixth of the land in value, 
and have awarded her that. It is too delightful ! 
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CHICORA WOOD 



and she is so happy, and we are all so happy, for 
the idea of giving up Chicora was dreadful, and 
we feared they would think it too valuable for a 
sixth. It has all to be repaired as the house is all 
torn to pieces, but Mamma has been so wonderful 
that she has invested more than a thousand dol- 
lars every year of the school, and she has begged 
Brother to engage carpenters and begin the res- 
toration of the house and out-buildings at once, so 
that it will be ready for us next winter. I only 
wish my heart was not so heavy about going. 

The packing up of all our belongings was a tre- 
mendous business, but in this as in everything else 
Charley was most efficient, and he did it with a 
good heart, as it was the greatest happiness to 
him that we were moving back to Chicora, and 
that he was going to plant the place. Jinty was 
also perfectly happy, the thought of being able to 
live on horseback once more filled her with joy. 
I, only, was downhearted; to me human nature 
had become more interesting than plain nature, 
and people more fascinating than plants. So I 
determined to apply for a place as music-teacher 
in the town of Union, S. C, which had been held 
by a very charming friend of mine who played 
beautifully, Caro Ravenel. The family did not ap- 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

prove of my doing this as mamma thought I needed 
rest; anyway, we were to go to the pineland for 
the summer and I would not have to leave for 
Union until the autumn. 

I remember well the last Sunday we were to be 
in Charleston; during the service I was so moved 
that I had to put down my heavy veil to conceal 
my tears ! 

Just at this time a most wonderful thing hap- 
pened : mamma got a letter from our cousin, John 
Earl Allston, of Brooklyn, N. Y., saying: 

"My dear Cousin: 

"I have placed to your credit in the Bank of 
Charleston the sum of ^5,000, which I hope will 
be useful to you. 

"You need feel no sense of obligation in receiv- 
ing it, for it is not one-half of what my Cousin 
Robert, your husband, did for me and mine in the 
past. When my mother's house was to be sold 
over her head, he bought it in and gave it to her, 
and many other things he did for us, and it is a 
great pleasure to me to be able to do this for his 
widow and family." 

Of course, this was as great a blessing as it was 
a surprise. It so happened that my mother had, 
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CHICORA WOOD 



in looking over some old papers recently, come 
upon a letter to my father, with a memorandum 
on the back in papa's handwriting: "Application 
from John E. Allston, for an increase in the 
amount of allowance made to his brother Wash- 
ington, as his health is much worse, and the ex- 
penses heavier; have directed that it be in future 
^500, instead of ^300, as heretofore." But she 
knew nothing about the purchase of the home. 

It was too wonderful that this great good luck 
and mercy should come to us just at this moment, 
when it would enable mamma to buy things neces- 
sary to the beginning of the planting; for she not 
only had to repair the house at Chicora, but she 
would have to buy in her own horses and cows 
and oxen (which last are absolutely necessary to 
ploughing the rice-lands, as their cloven hoofs do 
not sink in the boggy land, in which a horse would 
go down hopelessly) ; also ploughs and harrows and 
wagons and carriages, all had to be paid for; so 
dear, unknown Cousin John had chosen the psy- 
chic moment to appear as deus ex machina. 

Afterward Cousin John visited mamma at Chi- 
cora Wood, and we came to know and love him. 
He told with the most beautiful simplicity of the 
long and terrible struggle he had to make a liv- 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

ing; like many an Allston he lacked entirely the 
commercial instinct, and it was much easier for 
him to spend money than to make it; but he 
had managed to have a home in Brooklyn, and 
support his wife and one daughter in very moder- 
ate comfort, until this adored only child reached 
the age of sixteen; then she grew pale and thin, 
without life, or spirit, or appetite, and terror 
seized the parents; the doctor called in said: 
"She must travel; this city air is kilHng her. 
Take her away at once to the mountains, and you 
may save her." He had prescribed what to him 
seemed simple, but to the distracted father, who 
was straining every nerve just to provide daily 
food, it was utterly out of reach ! 

John Earl Allston had a very rich uncle, his 
mother's brother, but once in the past, being in 
distress for money, he had written to ask a loan 
from him, not a large sum, and promising to pay 
by a certain date, when his income should come 
next. He not only did not receive the loan, but 
the refusal was almost insulting, to the effect that 
he, the uncle, had worked for his money, and he 
strongly advised his nephew to do the same, and 
not try to borrow. So Cousin John knew there 
was no use to apply to him again, and there was 
[346] 



CHICORA WOOD 



no one else; the war was going on, and so my 
father was not accessible, and he had just to 
watch his darling fade away and die. Then his 
wife was so agonized over the misery of seeing 
death creep nearer and nearer and finally take her 
lovely child, that her health gave way. The doc- 
tor when called made the same prescription: "The 
only way to save her is to give her change of air 
and scene." As before, this was impossible, and 
she soon was laid beside her child. About a year 
after Cousin John was left desolate and alone, the 
uncle died, and he was notified that he had in- 
herited a fortune ! It was most terrible to him. 
All that money, one hundredth part of which 
could have saved his beloved wife and daughter, 
to spend on himself alone ! 

It was truly dust and ashes, and intensified his 
sorrow. Then, when he found himself getting bit- 
ter and unHke himself, he called a halt. "Cousin," 
he said, "I made up my mind to spend my time 
in giving away my money while I was alive, and 
have at least the enjoyment of making people 
happy by a little timely present, and you don't 
know how their letters have helped me, for I find 
so many to whom a few thousand dollars are as 
great a boon and relief as a few hundred would 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

have been to me in my poverty. I did not know 
how much happiness I was going to get out of it." 
I think this is a good place to stop, for all of us 
were happy in the thought that my dear mother's 
laborious life as the head of a large school was to 
end so happily, and that she would be able to rest 
and have time for the reading she so loved, and 
return to the country life which had become sec- 
ond nature to her, though conditions were so 
greatly changed, and she would certainly not have 
to complain of too many servants. I hope I have 
drawn her portrait and that of my father clearly 
enough for their children's grandchildren and 
great-grandchildren to form some idea of their 
characters. It is with that hope and desire I have 
drawn this imperfect sketch, and I will be per- 
fectly repaid for my efforts if I succeed in interest- 
ing them in the past. 



[348] 



CHAPTER XXXIII 
DADDY ANCRUM'S STORY 

I ASKED Daddy Ancrum to come some day 
and tell me all he could remember about the 
past, and this morning while I was reading 
the lessons to Clarinda in the front piazza we saw 
him coming through the gate, dressed in his Sun- 
day clothes, with a very clean white shirt and a 
rather battered derby, but worn with such an air 
that you knew it was superfine and not worn 
every day. I wish I had a picture of the old 
man; seems to me he has such a lovely face in his 
old age; his figure is now bent, but up to a few 
years ago it was very erect and powerful. Old as 
he is, he gives me a better day's work than any 
of the young ones. This is what he told me: 

My mudder and fader was Ancrum and Henny, 
bought from Mr. Withers after de storm. The 
creditor come in and we haf fu sell. My ma tell 
me I ben five year old the March after the big 
storm. Maussa was a big man, he was just as 
supple, why maussa stan' too fine. When he 
walk in Georgetown every man and woman had 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

to look 'pon hum. When I cum to Georgetown 
dere was only two full selling stores in town. All 
was big house for lib in. When dem bring we to 
town for sell, dem put up all de fambly, my uncle, 
my aunty, my pa, my ma, and der cousin all to- 
gether. Ole Mister Ben Allston come up to 
maussa and trow 'e arm round maussa neck, and 
he say: "Robert, step forward, the old Indigo 
Bank ain't bruk yet." Den maussa gon up and 
'e buy we all; Mr. Waterman want to buy me for 
mek pilot on de sea, and he offer one tousand 
dolla, but maussa woodn' let him have me. Ole 
maussa used to live in dat little house you got for 
study house. Maussa used to have all we chillun 
cum to de house and bring a shell and fill um 
with molasses, and we chillun ben dat happy and 
play round and maussa ben in de piazza and drop 
sleep, and we chillun lauf and say: "Luk a' buckra 
de sleep." De fust chile I min' ben Clanda Ma 
Maria. When I tak dat chile fu nurse ober rib- 
ber I see maussa been dat supple dat I seen him 
myself jump across dat kenel. Den he choose me 
to send me up to Marion to old Uncle Joe, 'bout 
two miles from Warhee. I ben dey when maussa 
married and de nex' yeah, when he gwine to de 
mounting, him gone trough day for see de place, 

[350] 



DADDY ANCRUM'S STORY 

and when he bring miss and Mas' Ben just been 
ole nufF fu miss to travel, and Amy ben a nussing, 
Maum Milly and Da Jeam's sister. Uncle Joe 
send me fu bring de colt out de field and I bring 
dem up so miss can see dem. Uncle Joe pint to 
me and he say: "Robert, that's a smart boy. 
Please God you must take good care of him." 
Den maussa lafF and say "Yes." Dem eat dinner 
under de wagon shed an de two sarvan, Amy the 
nuss and Hynes dribe de wagon, de Josey wagon, 
and maussa dribe de carriage. No, didn't ben a 
carriage, ben a baruche, wid de top tun back. 
Dem gon on after dinner — den I nebber seen 
miss or maussa till I hear say de place in Marion 
sell to Mr. Tommy Godbald. Maussa had a hun- 
dred head of cattle and Mauma Milly mild 30 
head ebery year and send down butter to miss 
and ebery year Uncle Joe drive from 60 to 100 
head o' hog. Dem had 500 acre of wild land — 
Oh, my Lawd, if you wanna see plum you must 
go dey, an' apple an' peach an' walnut an' ebery- 
ting to eat. Bob been a big young man, an Peter 
and Sampson and David, dem ben an' outlan' 
people Afrikan, one ben Gullah and one ben a 
Guinea — the Gullah ben a cruel people — and de 
Fullah ben a cruel people, but Guinea ben a tough 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

workin' people, an' Milly ben a Guinea, milk de 
cow, mak de butta, and bile and scald — and ma 
Laud, you could pick up hominy oflP de flo'. 
Now, after mauss sol' de place and all de cattle 
an' hog, 'e only fech down de pepple and de boss. 
When we come down him ben on de beach and he 
had annoder son name Robert. Him ben a longer 
jinted boy, him was a pretty boy, an' I seen him 
grown till he had on long ap'un. Maussa say 
when I come hom I mus'n't stop on de plantation 
dat night, I must go right over to the sheashore, 
but de day I come an' Mary ben jus' out of him 
time wid Billy, and him was to go down at dat 
time back to de beach wid de baby, and dem had 
to ge' befo' 'twas too late in de ebening, kase de 
baby was so young. My business was to cut 
marsh fo' de boss and pick clam fo' de duck; dat 
was at Kerneern an' I do dat an' Mary Grice was 
de cook, te Amy ben de nuss. Uncle Hynes was de 
coach driver, Moses Barren was de butler, Caesar 
was de hosier, Maum Ria was de seamster, an' 
Lavina was de fine seamster, and a gal name 
Cotter — an' Uncle Jeams Gallant was a fisher- 
man — I met dem dere when I cum fus and Sandy 
was de house boy, clean knife, rub mahogany, I 
tell you we had someting to do den. Den Miss 
BIy habe him sarvant ol' lady Mary Bly was 'e 
[352] 



DADDY ANCRUM'S STORY 

right hand, Uncle Aleck was de coach driber, ol' 
Uncle Stephen BIy ben de butler, but when him 
come to stay wid miss, him fish principal kase de 
was no wuck for him in de house. All dem sup- 
ply cum from Friend-Field. Haklus was de cook, 
when Miss Bly ben home, but now him had not'ing 
to do but cut mash for de boss, Miss Bly had t'ree 
horse, Hope, Victory, and Active. Jack was de 
tailor an' Fannie his wife was Miss Bly seamster, 
Binna was de house gal, F'ederick was de boy go 
behind de carriage, open gate an' ting. You ain't 
know dat maussa own nearly all of Georgetown ? 
Dat Pint used to plant in corn and dat place make 
all 'e own provision. I sell too much grass out o' 
dat place. Mauss used to rule de whole shubang 
— gracious Lord, Miss Bessie, when I study an' 
look back and ting — an' fin' out — you say you 
ben so po' I kyant believe, kase ole maussa ben 
too rich — I know befoh de death of my ole 
maussa, he put on de pole boat 50 jimmy John o' 
brandy an' gin an' rum fob tek up to Cheraw 
Bridge and put dem in Mr. Coker in sto', and one 
boat carry 160 barrel of rice an' one carry 140 
barrel, an' dem barrel hoi' 9 bushel an' you ken 
pack 10 in 'em, not dem little kag you call rice- 
barrel now. 

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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

Maussa see somet'ing in me I didn' see in my- 
self, an' he hoi' me bak all 'e cud, den after I ben 
in de house, an' den he put me in de field for a 
while, and den he pint me to plow, an' den when 
he put Peter in de field for ditch, an' den 'e pint 
me to wait on Mr. ElHs. I wait on 'im about 
seven years, but one summah maussa wen' travel- 
ling an' to de No'th, den Mr. Ellis treat me so 
mean I run 'way an' lef um. I done all 'e wuk 
an' cut wood an' do eberything an' he pa cum 
dere sick, an' when nite cum I hab to brush mus- 
kita off 'e pa, an' I brush de muskita as long as I 
could keep awake, but I drop 'sleep and den Mr. 
Ellis cum in and fin' me 'sleep, and take egvan- 
tage o' me and beat me, an' den I clean up an' 
lef, and I ben in de wood till I hear maussa cum 
home. Den maussa didn' keep Mr. Ellis anoder 
year, an' after dat I gone in de field an' after dat 
he take me fo' plow-man ober ribber, an' after dat 
on de high Ian' — an' den 'e make me captain of 
a gang in harvest, an' I was a regular arrand man, 
I nebber wuck in de field no mo' — jes' tek cha'ge 
of flat — carry supply to Waverly ebery week, 
when maussa was gov'ner, carry down poultry, 
vegetable, rice, butter to go down to miss in 
Charlestown, bring back molasses, sugar, rum, 
I 354] 



DADDY ANCRUM'S STORY 

eberyt'ing, an' one time I was to take de house 
sarvant to put on de boat to tek dem down to de 
town, dem was to cum on de flat, 'bout middle 
night, an' dem nebber cum till day clean, an' jus' 
as dem come in, de boat gone. Nelson, William, 
and Fibby — Fibby in de house, was ole Daddy 
Thomas' daughta, and he ask maussa to buy her, 
an' 'e bought her and two chillun, Nancy and 
Jeams, an' afterwards she married Leander, the 
mule tender, Cuffy was drowned swimming de 
ribber with Buie, an' Sawney, too, dem had finish' 
task soon, an' so dem start home an' swim de rib- 
ber, an' CufFy had a bucket tie' round 'im neck 
and 'e fill with water an' pull 'im down. I stan' 
on de bank an' seen 'im drown. When I get to 
Squirrel Crick wid de flat and de boat gone, an' I 
hab to tek dat flat down to town, and dat tek me 
till after dinner, an' I didn't hab nuffin to eat 
'cause I was only spectin' to go to de mout' of 
Squirrel Crick, an' dat boat gone in to Waverly, 
tek a load of rice, an' pass me on de way, an' 
he gone into Keith field, an' tek a load of rice, 
an' pass me on de way, and when I get to town 
I ben mos' dead, I ben dat hongry, an' Fibby say 
to de captain, very polite, ''Captain, can' you gib 
these men something to eat, dey is mos' dead." 
[355] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

Den de captain said: "Dinner is done, and there 
ain't nutting but plenty of meat"; an' he gib we 
plen'y of meat, an' Fibby put 'e han' in 'e pocket 
an 'e tek out a twenty-five cents, an' give we, an' 
he say you can each send a dozen eggs down to 
Charlestown sometime to me. An' we gone an' 
buy rice. 

After de wah come on and de sea all blockage 
an' maussa send me in charge o' 22 han' to wuck 
on fortification. In June I was wuckin ober de 
ribber an' maussa sen' fob me, fust de Driver 
Richard was to tell me, but he didn't wan' me to 
go, and I didn't wan' to go, and I gone ober ribber 
'gen in m' task — and Mr. Belflowers sen' fob me, 
an' after maussa cum an' see me ben a fight fob 
hoe out m' corn, den maussa tell me I ken tek 
dat day fu finish m' corn, den Paul say we mus' 
leave at twelve or we can' ketch de train. 

Maussa tell me, 'e say: "Boy, you see nobody 
hurt my hands, you ask the name of the person 
in charge and let me know, and when you go any- 
where to work, you ask the captain to put you in 
a tent by yourself, with your own men, don't mix 
up with other people." Now maussa tell me dat 
t'ree time', an' "Boy," he say, "go to my yaad 
when you get to Charleston." 
[356] 



DADDY ANCRUM'S STORY 

We ben dere a good while, an' one day maussa 
cum in a bright kerrige, an' eberybody hurrah, an' 
maussa cum to we an' 'e say: "Well, boy, how you 
gettin' on?" An' I say: "Not well, maussa. I 
los' one of me man, Pompey, an' de res' sick, an' 
dis place don' 'gree wid dem." He say: "Well, 
you can't go till your wuck dun." "My maussa, 
dis wuck'll nebber done. We'll dun, but de wuck 
won't dun, we's all sick." 

Maussa say: "Well, boy, if dat so you ken leave 
to-morrow. You meet me in Charlestown Mon- 
day; this is Saturday. Don't let any of the hands 
go over to Charlestown until you go." Jackson, 
Fibby's brother, wen' off, but I couldn't stop him. 
Monday we was to walk to Charlestown, maussa 
tell de cap'ain put dem cross de bridge, but he 
didn' put we over till eleven o'clock, so maussa 
had to put we on de mail train. When we get to 
Salters he tell Sam to give we each four quart of 
rice an' then Paul Bryan drive we in de wagon 
four miles and maussa tol' us to take two days to 
get home, bu' we cum righ' 'ome dat same nite. 
I tell you him been a number one maussa dat. 
Him'll nebber back down from a man in trouble. 
He'll save you if you is to save ! The night we 
left the wuk, Mr. King was killed that day. 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

When we got home maussa send me to a place 
called Britton's Neck, dere 'e was clearing up land 
to plant. After dat maussa bring me down and 
put me in a flat, and I carry de rice from Waverhr 
Mill to Kingstree. He sent Saundy fust, dtii 
maussa cum to Britton's Neck, an' tell me: **Boy, 
I want one flat from Nightingdale Hall, three 
from Chicora, and two from Guendalow, take all 
to Waverly, and all take turns an' load and then 
start together, and go up the Black River to 
Kingstree, to the double bridge." 

You couldn't pole in Waccamaw, you had to 
row, an' you couldn't pole in Black River 'til you 
get to Mr. Green, Rockingham, then you ken fin' 
sum polin' bottom. Sawny flat maussa put in 
barrel and one week after maussa sen' me an' tell 
me to ketch Sawny, an' Sawny ben unload, an' 
Mr. Shaw tek de rice an' haul half a mile about to 
de depot an den de railroad tek dem. Was a 
good deal of bad weather, and dat way it tuk me 
two weeks — Nightingdale flat only make one 
trip, but de odder five flat tek rice from Waverly 
to Kingstree three years, an' after dat maussa 
had two boat build, an' send me an' Joe Washing- 
ton in charge of dem. My wife Maggie was a 
healthy woman 'til she begin to breed, but after 
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DADDY ANCRUM'S STORY 

that maussa put her to mind de sheep. Maussa 
say he nebber had any one fu' mind sheep Uke 
she. When she call to de sheep "Come back 
^ere," dey just wheel right round; when I gone 
on de boat up ribber, maussa say my wife is very 
sick, she was at de pint of death; I was near 
Cheraw — we wus aground three days, and we 
couldn't go, and I pray, an' I pray, an' I pray, 
dat night, 'cause I couldn't lef de boat on de 
road and de Lawd sen' a big rain dat night and 
raise de ribber thirty feet, and we gone up an' 
git out de load an' gone right back home. An' 
maussa tell me I mus' put Maggie on de boat, to 
go up, an' I must walk and drive up de sheep Mr. 
George Jeams had bought from him. "An' you 
must drive them up to him, and then you go on 
to a place I bought with my own money, and I 
got ninety-five fine, good, prime people up there 
and I want you to take charge of the place — 
those people can't make feed enough there to keep 
them four months; now I want you to see if you 
can make a crop up there." Den I say: "Maussa, 
what can I do with my cow and calf; I kyant left 
them." Him say: "Well, take them right along 
with you." Den I say: "Maussa, I got ninety 
sheep fu' carry, and my cow got a raging calf, an* 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

how can I tek them all along, on dat journey all 
by myself." Den maussa say: "You can take 
Michael with you, till you get to Lynch's Creek, 
where two men will meet you and take the sheep." 
Well, I start from de farm and de sheep travel 
so slow, and so tired, I never gone no fadder dan 
Mr. Blank way to Union Church; I stay dere dat 
night, an' de next day I gone to Lynch's Creek, an' 
I wait dere, an no man nebber come for de sheep, 
an' I just gone on an' tek de sheep and cattle, and 
when de man cum for de sheep dey had to follow 
me about twenty miles, an' den I tu'n Michael 
back an' I mek time on, an' when I get to de place, 
maussa send me to take charge of Morven, an' I 
tek charge, an' fust I build a house for Maggie, 
when 'e come, and I ben dere three week before 
Maggie cum. She had Pattie, and Kissie, and 
Pauline, and Aham; an' Peter, an' Peter Sweet's 
Louisa was on de boat, in delicate state, an' Mag- 
gie had to put dem to bed on de boat. An' when 
I ben dere one month maussa come, an' I been a 
clear ground when he come — he call fo' me and 
Mr. Yates, the agent, and Mr. Balentine, the 
obershear; Mr. Yates sit near de fire, wid maussa, 
I stand behind, and maussa say: "Well, Anchum, 
I bring you here to try and make a crop for me, 
[360] 



DADDY ANCRUM'S STORY 

and Mr. Balentine, I want you to put everything 
in his charge — he is to order the work, and he is 
to do the punishment, and I want you to put the 
keys in his hands too." 

An' den I say: "Maussa, I well onderstan' de 
wuck, an' I'll tek charge of dat, but I don't want 
to tek no key." An' maussa say I must. But 
when maussa gone, I slip de key back in Mr. Bal- 
entine's hand an' say, "I don' want de key, you 
keep de key," an' maussa say to me: "You feed 
my horse and you feed Mr. Balentine's horse too, 
and your daughter Patty milk the cow." But I 
wouldn't let Patty milk, 'cause I wouldn't run 
'cross Amy, him been a'milk, and I know what 
was going on, an' I knows dem people been eat de 
meat out o' de smoke-house, an' I know dem 
would tu'n it on me — so I wait till we fin' out, 
an' Mr. Balentine gib dat man. Chance Grate, 
an' he an' Abram Hynes an' himself were part- 
ners, and when Chance tuk some one else in the 
smoke-house without tell Abram he get mad an' 
tu'n State evidence an' tell me, an' I must ask 
Mr. Balentine: "Y' miss any meat.?" An' he 
say "No." An I say: "Dat strange, 'cause 
Chance has got some; you'd better look." An' 
he gone in de smoke-house, an' miss a lot. He 
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CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

had kill an' cure fifty hog, and the meat ought to 
ben dere. When Mr. Balentine gone to count de 
meat he find half gone, den he gone with me to 
Chance house, an' dere he find two hams an' a 
shoulder, an' Mr. Balentine give him a big lick- 
ing, 'til he confess how he done it. Den I stop 
him, I hold 'e hand an' I say: "Maussa only want 
de trut; he don't allow lick after dat, not another 
cut." Dere was two rice-barrel pack wid 300 bot- 
tle of ole wine in de cellar at Morven. I wucked 
and wucked and made a fine crop of peas, corn, 
and potatoes. Mr. Evans come up with ole miss 
to look at de crop, w'en I let her know I had 
housed de corn, one passel was shucked clean, an' 
Mista Evans, when he look at it, estimate 1,000 
bushel of corn. Howsumeber, in de fall in Febru- 
ary we hear de Yankees was bombarding Chiraw; 
eberybody was trying to get away from dat side, 
as de bridge was burned by we people. Two sol- 
diers cum one nite an' ask me to let them spend 
de night — dey was what de people call de "Geor- 
gia Wild Cat," Dey say: "Ole man, de Yankees 
will be here before nine to-morrow morning." Dey 
hadn't sooner gone away from de house next 
morning, when de whole place was surround wid 
soldier, and dey call on de men to surrender. 
[362] 



DADDY ANCRUM'S STORY 

What dey call de picket guard cum fust, and ax 
dat Daddy Hammedy fo' de key, an' when him 
hesitate, dem say, "I don't want no key," an' he 
just rushed up and kicked de door in, an' rushed 
in, and run up-stairs, and cum down with a bag 
full of silver, an' forks and spoons an' plate an' 
dat man say: "Ole man, de man dat own dis 
place must be a hell of a rich man, he got such 
fine tings." An' I say: "Yes, sir, my master is a 
powerful rich man." Den de oders run in an' git 
more; den dey gone — den we tought dey was all 
gone, when on a sudden de whole place full of 
people, from every corner — dey seem to rise 
right out de ground; now dis was de infantry, an' 
dey cum to station dere, and dey station dere 
for one week. Dem people just run dat grits-mill 
from de time day cum; dey just grind all de corn 
we mek, an' in a half hour de smoke-house was 
empty, and dey kill and dey fetch in, and dey 
kill and dey fetch in, and dey kill and dey fetch 
in, an' I got tired of it, I was sassy to them; I was 
wore out. Me an' Hammedy was de only man 
on de place; I jus' had to stey by de captain to 
perteck me and dese womens — den he put a 
guard an' tell dem to shoot any soldier dat went 
to burn or trouble de people. By de time dey 
[363] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

was gone dere was nothing left but de rough rice 
— 400 bushels — an' dey couldn't manage dat; 
dey took all de corn, and if it hadn't been for de 
rice we would have starved. The Yankees left on 
Tuesday, an' de next Sunday Mr. Yates sent me 
word, I must take de people an' left at once; we 
must take de road, man, woman, and chillun; we 
must be gone Monday night — that I must take 
de hands and march off at once. I send George 
Green to tell miss, say "Come at once," and 
Tuesday miss cum. Daddy Eleck drive 'um, and 
Miss Bessie cum wid um, an' Mista Evans ride 
'long side, an' miss say "What's matter?" an' I 
say: "Mr. Yates drive we, say we must lef." 
Then miss say, "Well, turn to work, repair de 
land and plant what you can"; but I say: "Miss, 
I want to go home." Miss laugh and say: "Where 
is your home, Acrum ?" I say: "Wherever you is, 
miss, dere is my home." An' miss say: "Well, if 
you go home now, 'tis too late to plant crop, so 
you had better plant your crop here, so by fall 
you can go after you gather the crop." So we 
done so, an' we mek a fine crop of corn and peas, 
an' when de time cum for to move, all de people 
what didn't have chillun tek dey fut an' gone, an' 
we big fambly couldn't do dat, an' I study, an' I 
[364] 



DADDY ANCRUM'S STORY 

study an' at las' I say to Daddy Hammedy: 
"You an' your son is carpenter, and you can mek 
a flat; I can tek a man an' cut down some big 
dead pine, an' haul dem in, an' we got saw-mill, 
and we can mek flat, and so we done, an' in two 
weeks after we done gather in de crop we had de 
flat done and ready to start on a Saturday; den 
we say we will move next week, and de people say 
let's go now, and so we done, but de oxen and 
ting worry me. Ole miss had send Mr. Yates and 
Mr. Balentine away an' got a young man name 
John Shaw in charge, and he done just what I 
say. Den I puswade March — he had a ole horse 
he pic' up — to tek de oxen down to ole miss to 
Society Hill, wid de boss, and he done so. We 
started Sunday evening at four o'clock, and we 
did not get down to Chicora until de next Sun- 
day night in de night. Me and Daddy Ham- 
medy, an' his wife Mary Ann, an' my wife Maggie, 
an' his daughter Tyra, an' granddaughter Cherry, 
my chillun — Patty, Elizabeth, Pauline, Kizzie, 
Aham, and the baby Kilpatrick, then York Blye 
and Mary, his wife, and Joseph, Betsy, March's 
wife, Leah, and Hetty, and Flora, Phenix, and his 
wife Elizabeth, and his daughter Mary, and his 
daughter Miley, and Lucy. When I got off to 
[365] 



CHRONICLES OF CHICORA WOOD 

Chicora everything been tear up, people don gone 
crazy; now, when I left my house maussa tell me 
no one was to stay in my house till I come. I 
come back and find Moses in my house. I gone 
right in an' mek Moses come right out. Now 
Mauss Ben he done puty by me; I had nine head 
to feed, an' Mauss Ben say he feed them all fo' my 
wuck, so Mauss Ben feed my family fu' dat year, 
and feed dem well, an' we mek fine crop o' rice. 
The fust contract was you fu'nish land and seed 
and animals an' get two-thirds; I fu'nish wuck and 
get one-third. Every day I didn't wuck was de- 
duct' from my share. 

Daddy Ancrum advised a change to one-half, 
the hands to furnish the work animals as well as 
their own work, and the owner furnish the land 
in good fix, and seed rice, and it was divided 
equally in half. (This proved very successful, as 
they had their own work animals.) 



[366] 




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